Five Years and Ten Days
by Fixomnia Scribble
Summary: The Effect of Oxygen upon Glowing Embers. In which we comb out the tangled threads of the last two episodes of Season 8 and reverse-engineer something functional, sensible and pretty, much like our protagonists. Mega-spoilers for 8x21 "The Devil You Know" and 8x22 "My Aim Is True". READERS 18 AND UP PLEASE.
1. Chapter 1

May 4, 2018: Friday evening

He takes his time after work, even opting for the drippy, institutional-green showers in the locker room instead of waiting until he's back home again. There is a leaden lump in the pit of his stomach that makes all his movements slow and difficult. Not long ago, the end of the work-week meant burgers, beers and darts, and Eddie with her hair down and her ribald laugh ringing sweet and loud. Tonight, it means driving home in the dark to his silent apartment and cursing himself out some more.

He's lost her. As far as anyone can presume upon another's presence, company and affection, he's lost her, and he's the only one to blame. Not Barry, not Eddie. She has every right to her own life and companions, and she wasn't going to stay in their stasis bubble with him forever.

After a half hour of wasting time, he figures he should be able to escape without seeing Eddie in her Out On A Date getup. Her old suede jacket over her tight black jeans, the ones that showcase the ass that her uniform trousers and duty belt do a good job of hiding. Her makeup just a little more dramatic, and her neckline just a little lower than she'd normally wear at work. That wistful look in her eyes. He doesn't think he'd deal with that very well.

So of course, when he rounds the corner towards the exit, she's standing there looking amazing, eyeing her cellphone with an expression he can't decipher, the heel of her boot braced against the wall.

His stomach drops a half inch further. "Hey, what're you still doing here?" he asks, aiming for normalcy.

She gives him that unreadable look. "I work here," she says. He takes a second glance at her. She's tense and unhappy, but not with him.

"Yeah, I meant, uh, I thought you had a thing with Barry."

"He cancelled."

 _History repeating?_ he wonders. He doesn't get why on earth she's wasting her time on a schmuck like that. He feels a kaleidoscope of feelings wash through him: genuine concern for her, anger and alarm that she can't see or doesn't care that Barry's blowing her off again, despondency that he can't tell her that he'd never treat her with any less respect and adoration than she richly deserves. Bleak hopelessness, that she apparently can't see that for herself, or if she ever did, his fault is the greater for holding her away from him all this time.

"What, an hour before?"

"Something came up," she shrugs. Her smile is forced, deflective. He winces inside. It reminds him of how she used to cover up her feelings, in the early days before she came to trust him.

"Well. Sorry to hear it."

She inhales quickly, and then asks, all casual, "You got plans?"

 _Oh._

This is what he was hoping to avoid. Having to listen to Eddie's dating problems like the supportive friend he'd always been, with her sitting just a little closer to him than strictly necessary and looking so fucking pretty. There's this thing they do with resting a hand on each other's arm for a moment, instead of bringing each other in for a hug when they need one and can't ask for it. Even that would take it out of him tonight. Usually he'd find a way to help her laugh it off, to remind her that nobody who couldn't see her value was worth her time. But he can't laugh about Barry.

Bleeding inside, he can't stop the snark from escaping.

"Ah, yeah. I said I'd be second fiddle."

She stops dead in her tracks. "Hey," she says, when he turns around. "You're not."

If there's a clearer definition for being someone's second choice, he's not sure what it might be. He supposes she means they've always been each other's default for company, which is true, but that's the part that hurts the worst right now. She's hasn't wanted or needed him around off-duty since the return of Barry, and he feels the loss of her more keenly than he ever thought he could. Especially with her standing right there in front of him.

And the only way forward is to let her go. Keeping her near to him in the old way will drain the life out of him. He tries not to think of the old saw about _letting go of the ones you love_ and trying to trust they will come back. It's too damn close to the bone. He doesn't know how he's going to haul himself through the next days and weeks and years if he says the words out loud, but he has to say something. Anything. Because he can't keep up the façade much longer, and still be a good partner.

"Seriously, I think it's…it's not good for me…you and Barry…"

He sees the impact of his vague words land far harder than he intended. Twisting her fingers unconsciously, she comes to a decision and says quietly, "All right. I lied. Barry didn't cancel. I did."

That gives him pause. What is she trying to say? Have things gone bad with Barry, somehow, that she feels she has to make excuses not to see him, and then _lie_? To her partner as well as her...whatever Barry is to her? But Eddie's no damsel in distress, and she has no time for assholes in her life.

"Why?"

"'Cause. This week's been kind of emotional. He wouldn't get it. You would."

 _Oh_.

That's his Eddie again, standing in front of him. No shadows, no awkward smiles, no filters. Just her trust in him and her need of him shining out through her eyes. Between the frantic hunt for the baby, talking the baby's kidnapper off a fucking bridge, babies in general (because he knows, of course he knows) and realizing that Barry doesn't cut it as a rock of support, Eddie's been through her own mill this week, too.

"We went through it together. Please," she finishes.

She darts a glance back towards the bullpen, delayed reactions threatening to overwhelm her for a moment. Eddie does not break down in front of people, especially at work. He's the only one she can do that around, when she has to. Sometimes it's enough for her just to know she can. Sometimes you just need to be with someone you don't have to explain anything to.

God knows he could sit with her in total silence and feel a bad week slipping into place within their shared history. He may be a good listener, but talking through emotional stuff gets his guard right up, however eloquent he may be in his head. She gets that about him. And when he does talk, she listens hard to the spaces in between his words as much as anything, and she gets it. It's one of many reasons why he loves and appreciates her so much.

He feels a jolt and a lift in his gut, and wonders what she's really telling him. Regardless, she needs to get out of there.

"If we do go, we gotta talk about it the whole time?" he deadpans. Partly to remind her how much he appreciates the way they deal with shit together, and partly from self-preservation. He doesn't think he can handle a whole lot of stories about how Barry doesn't understand her.

" _No_ ," she insists.

"Okay. What d'you feel like?" he asks. Their old pattern.

"Whatever _you_ feel like," she assures him, and he holds his breath for the follow-up. "-as long as it's Thai or Vietnamese."

As he holds the door, she passes by with a kick in her stride and flick of her hair. The familiar scent of her so close makes his senses reel for a moment. For once, he's not hit with a wave of cautionary self-restraint (or, since Barry happened, abject self-loathing) in the second after.

He pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath. The cold, leaden lump is melting away. In its place is a buoyancy he'd thought had deserted him.

 _Eddie chose me._

When it came down to it, when she needed a safe place and a partner in arms, she chose him.

What else might it mean?

His evening has just gotten interesting in a way he hasn't felt for a long time.

He hopes he's not about to be wrecked completely.

* * *

They're sitting over steaming bowls of phở, and not-talking about Barry. They're talking quietly over old times, instead. It's a far cry from diving into a beer glass and escaping into raucous laughs with rest of the shift, or even sparring back and forth over some stupid joke or point of trivia, as they usually do to release tension. They're drifting back over five years of shared stories and peak experiences, lives saved and lives they couldn't, running in-jokes and small victories. A partnership they were assigned through the promise they showed as officers, and deepened through years of unspoken promises to each other.

Being in a public space, they can only talk in code about police business, but even that lends it a sort of intimacy. It's gentle. It's _kind_. It's exactly what they need. Jamie realizes that before Eddie's revelation about ditching Barry tonight, he might have interpreted this as a warning that she was about to drop a bombshell on him. But it's not that. The crackling atmosphere that so often surrounds them is suffused with something like serenity. Whatever is going on, it's going to be okay.

He's spent so long dialling back his more tender and appreciative and, well, _appreciative_ responses to her that it hits him quite suddenly that _maybe this is the moment he can stop doing that_.

He catches himself gazing, and gazes some more.

When Eddie's sweet coffee is ready, she wraps her hands around her mug and sits smiling back at him for a moment. The bobbing candlelight between them casts her hair and the lines of her face in gold and shadows, and her skin seems to glow from within. She's so lovely his heart quakes. He lets himself think of her, just for a moment, stretched out on his bed, wearing nothing but candlelight and that same smile. _Could they possibly…?_

"Jamie?"

"That's me."

For a long second, he finds himself entranced by her eyes and the curl of her smile all over again, before she looks off to the side.

"I feel like I owe you some kind of explanation," she says.

"You don't," he assures her, "If you mean the Barry thing."

"I wasn't trying to make you jealous. I'm not that girl."

They're long past pretending they haven't been beset with jealousy over each other from very early on. Have they found a way back to admitting it?

"I know. You got a right to your own life, Eddie. And I…have not been exactly…" he pauses. "Are we talking about this?"

"We absolutely have to talk about this," she tells him flatly. "At least clear the air. With _words_."

She's right. He only prays it goes well. He can orate extemporaneously on a point of law for a good half-hour, but this is far beyond his comfort zone. And it's maddening, because once he's firmly, truly committed to a girl, once he's in all the way, the words just flow. But getting there – and with someone like Eddie, who makes him so viscerally aware of how much he needs her and how deeply her leaving ever again would wound him…

 _I have to try,_ he tells himself. _For her._

He brings his napkin to his mouth to stall for a moment. "Starting where?"

"Starting with…loneliness," she says, and then takes a sip of coffee to steady herself, because this is all very real and very big for her, too. "And me trying to convince myself to move on. To believe I could still feel something for _someone_ if I just kept trying, because nothing was ever going to happen with us, because – I don't even know why. We've just been _stuck_. We've gotten really good at pretending nothing's going on. And then when Barry happened the first time, we could laugh about how he didn't get our crazy life at all. And suddenly it seemed – it felt like we were in the same place we were last year, only different. Like we were finally on the same page at the same time. But then it felt like you just – backed off again. And I didn't know what to think."

"I really did take a hint, when you took that shot," he says, all jerky and in a rush. He'd thought he might never get a chance to tell her that. "I was going to say something. But I wanted to – I needed to get through it, too. The thought of what might've happened to you was…so I had this idea just to be whatever you needed, get you back on your feet, and then find the right time…but then Barry came back. Because I waited too damn long. So how could you know where I was at? And how could I get in the way of you being happy? I didn't want to bust up any chance you had with the guy, and I knew he had issues about us. For all I knew, any history we had was just…history."

His hands are clenched together under the table to forestall the fidgets. Eddie looks at him with sympathetic eyes. She knows how far he has to be pushed to come out with things like that.

"I wasn't happy," she tells him, low. "I wasn't even settling. I was just filling time. Don't get me wrong, Barry's a good guy. He's a lot like you, actually, which just made it worse."

They're still dancing around the flame, talking in their usual shorthand and assuming the other will fill in the difficult blanks. But this is a time to be brave if there ever was one.

"Jamie," she says in a small voice, the words wrung out of her, "I can't lose you."

"You're not going to lose me."

"It's more than that."

She's right. They've been so focused on _not losing_ each other, as a way of ignoring all the possibilities of _what they could be_ to each other.

"Eddie..."

She tilts her head and waits. He feels the world give under his feet and all he can do is fall with it. He braces his palms on the table and takes a rapid breath.

"You are everything to me. _Everything_. Words aren't enough. And the words I want to say I can't say here. But don't ever doubt that."

For once, Eddie is speechless. She stares in surprise, struck hard, and eyes glimmer with suspicious brightness. But she reaches to cover his hand with hers. And slowly, seriously, she nods.

"Everything," she says, so quietly he can hardly hear her over the thudding of his heart. She's so proud of him for saying it first, and he feels about ten feet tall. It's more than a confession. It feels like a promise made and returned.

He slides his fingers through hers, and doesn't miss her indrawn breath though parted lips as she watches. He feels it too, the old leaping spark and the flutter and oh, God, what is happening tonight?


	2. Chapter 2

If they were under any confusion about whether a casual dinner out had turned into a date, the confusion lifts as they leave the restaurant. Almost without thinking, Jamie holds her jacket for her. Turning back around, Eddie smiles into his eyes as she flicks her hair out from her collar. It's amazing how such a small, natural interaction quickens his pulse.

It's definitely not a regular night when he opens the passenger door of his car for her, and she grips the edge of his jacket and stands on tiptoe, and brushes a feather-light, devastating kiss over the corner of his mouth that leaves him stunned. His whole body locks up for a moment. By the time he thinks of kissing her back, she's buckled in and grinning broadly up at him, looking awfully pleased with herself.

 _Jesus, Eddie_.

This woman is under his skin in so many ways, and she knows it. He gets into his seat and gives her a look.

 _What?_ her eyes say. _I felt like it. So?_

But he knows exactly how fast her heart is racing, too.

"Where d'you want to go?" he asks her, trying for lightness, as they move into the traffic. He's not exactly asking _your place or mine_. They need to talk more. They need be near each other, whatever else happens tonight. He wouldn't mind if they kept on driving for a while. Their night drives have always been their shared universe, where hard truths and old hurts can come out in the dark and quiet, and confessions be shared without having to look at each other.

"I never slept with him," she blurts out by way of answer.

He feels her eyes search his face. He nods, listening. He'd been determined not to ask. It's her own private business, but he admits he's glad to hear it, and that she wants him to know.

"I mean, I thought about it, but I – might have oversold how much recovery time I needed." She presses thumb and forefinger against her eyes for a moment. "How the hell did this turn into a thing where I make shit up and lie about it? Jamie, I have to clear things up with Barry, too. Before anything else happens. He thinks we're still figuring out how to make things work, he and I. Unless he's about to disappear again, after I bailed on him tonight. I have no idea."

"Why go through all that? Let him stew in it. Consider yourself evens."

His eyes gleam with hidden mischief, and she whacks his arm with the back of her hand. He'd never do such a thing to a girl, himself, even one who ghosted him, and he knows it. He just doesn't want Barry anywhere in their world.

"I'm not that girl, either," she says firmly.

"It's still early. I could run you by his place real quick," he offers, half-seriously. "I'll just sit in the car and wait."

"Oh," she says, thoughtfully. "Huh. That might be best, if you mean it. Really? You'd do that?"

The inner lurking Bastard Reagan rather likes the thought of knowing he's waiting for her to come back to him after telling the Other Guy he lost out.

"If it'll help you get squared away like you need to, yeah, of course," he says, like a good pal.

"Oh, fuck," she mutters, leaning back against the headrest. "I haven't had to do this in years. I better…I don't even know if he's gone out. Lemme check."

He doesn't see what she's texting, but she's backspacing and worrying her lower lip a lot as she types. Eventually she sits back, takes a breath and hits "Send."

They drive another three blocks before her phone chimes softly. They share a glance and he pulls over into the next curb space, even though she's not the one driving.

She scrolls through Barry's text, her eyes flitting side to side nervously. "Huh," she says again, almost to herself.

"What?"

She reads off her phone. "I knew this would happen from the start. Good luck to you both. Don't worry about me. I won't forget you."

They are both quiet for a moment.

"I didn't even tell him anything," she says. "Just asked if I could drop by to talk for a minute now that I was free."

"You think he's on the level?" he asks, "Because that's pretty decent."

Now he wants to thank Barry for being the agent of chaos that set them both straight.

"I _did_ have good reasons for going out with him," she points out. "But I think yeah, that's him being straight up. And that tells you how deeply invested he was in pursuing anything for real. At least – " she glances down, and with a catch in her voice, adds, "at least we've both been honest with each other about it. Now maybe we can get on with our lives."

He's not sure whether she means that she and Barry can get on, or he and Eddie themselves, but he agrees. There is a brief silence.

"So the question remains: where d'you want to go?" he asks.

A loaded question if ever there was one. Because if this is the shot they've got, he's not wasting it, partners or not. He has no idea of the shape of her thoughts. Does she want to head to one of their familiar late-night coffee spots? Does she want the safety of her own place, or does she know he'd feel more stable in his own, just now? He's certainly not going to presume they're going to leap from zero to some anonymous hotel room, all in less than an hour, but…it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, either. She's looking at him with an expression he hasn't seen since they were out dancing together.

"Take me home, Reagan," she says. _You dance just fine._

 _Oh, God._ He hasn't let himself feel _that_ in years.

His place, then.

* * *

"Make yourself at home," he says, hanging up her jacket. "You want a drink? I could make us some tea. What?"

Eddie's laughing at him. "Is this how you are with a girl over? _I could make us some tea_? It's just me. You know, the one you yell at for putting my boots on the coffee table."

"Yeah," he grins lopsidedly, "Yeah, all right. What d'you feel like?"

"I'm good. Just come talk."

That's probably what they should do. He kicks off his sneakers (as she unzips her boots with exaggerated care) and follows her towards the couch. He tries not to make too much of the fact that she kissed him, less than an hour ago and he's still high as a kite from it, a tiny little thing like that. Because it's Eddie, because of the way her body felt sliding up against him, the softness of her lips and the way she smelled so good, and _she kissed him, Eddie kissed him._

He gets like that, though. He's been that way even before Theresa smiled at him and said thanks for the pencil, in fifth grade. It just never really occurs to him that someone might like him as much. Because he does not do feelings halfway, and since he was small, people have either teased him mercilessly about it, or felt overwhelmed by it when they're on the receiving end.

So it's not just that Eddie kissed him again. It's that she's _everything_. And he'd told her that, and she hadn't teased him or gotten weirded out. She'd met him halfway.

They're supposed to talk about this some more, or something.

He watches his hand reach out and touch her shoulder, just before she sits down. She turns around, questioningly, and there must be something in his face, because the question slides away into a wide-eyed _oh_ , and then he's finding her mouth with his and they're falling into each other. _Oh, God_. A depth charge seems to go off in him, and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her closer as she rises up on her toes. It hits her just as hard, her fingers clutching at his back as he nudges her lips apart, and the little sigh she gives just about unravels him. She wants more, and he gives it to her, every time she asks for it, deeper and sweeter, till they're both breathless and a little dazed.

Her fingers let up on him and she slides down on her heels again, staring at him. "Wow."

"Yeah."

He can feel his eyes glowing at her, from that place deep inside that very few ever see. He waits, wanting her to decide what happens next.

"Good thing we didn't do _that_ before," she says, regaining her breath, "or we'd never have been able to back off."

He gives a quick laugh. "Probably. But I think we knew that."

She slides her hands up his chest and leans into him, and he closes his eyes briefly with the pleasure of it. "So..."

"So."

"Is this too soon?" he asks quietly, "Because it's totally fine – "

"It's been too damn long already," she replies.

"Oh, thank God."

She laughs. "Come on. If you're gonna kiss the legs out from under me like that, I want a decent place to land."

He brings his hands up to hers, and links their fingers, steering her towards his room. _Backwards and in heels_ , he thinks, but that's never been them. If anything, they've always taken turns leading the crazy dance they do.

She gets his flannel and his t-shirt off him before they even reach the door, and her pullover top takes but a second more. By the time he lifts her off her feet and lays her down on his bed, she's breathing hard and her eyes are glowing right back at him.

"Smooth, Reagan."

"You like that?" he asks, with an internal grin. He walks past the bed to the window, squeezes her toes in quick reassurance as he does, and flicks the curtains closed.

"I like that," she says, a smile in her voice as he comes back to stretch out beside her.

She's wriggled out of her bra meanwhile with a sigh of relief, and drops it beside the bed, and he's grateful for the dim illumination from the distant lights at street level below, because his jaw drops like a teenager's. She's never been shy about her figure, and of course he had _some_ idea of what she might look like nude, but she's exquisite. Small and strong and with curves that would make an architect swoon.

Her palm smooths over his arm, his chest, and lingers over his heart, thumping away in his ribcage. He braces on one elbow and leans over, reaching out to touch her cheek. She seeks out his mouth again impatiently and his fingers burrow into her hair as they tumble into a hungry kiss, his senses surging with the feel of her skin against his. She's silky warm and so responsive to the lightest touch, her panting breaths quickly turning to soft moans. She wrings heavy gasps out of him in return, her tentative strokes over his skin turning greedy and possessive, her nails digging into his back with a pleasure that pierces him as he finds her hard little nipples with his mouth, his tongue. _Jesus, Eddie._ He slides a hand down, over her hip, over her shapely tight ass that's been driving him quietly mad for years. She moves so sweet under his touch, and _how long have they both been needing this?_

It's fast and intense, and oh, God, he wants her, but even being with her like this is far beyond anything he expected when he woke up this morning. He's about to ask if this is as much clothing as they're shedding tonight. And then he feels her fingers sliding experimentally along the waist of his jeans and working under the button, and he can't think of much anymore.

"Yeah?" she whispers.

"Oh, God, yeah."

His head drops down to rest on her clavicle as she unbuttons and unzips, and _ohfuck_ , her hand eases inside to find him, exploring the heft and weight of him, hard and pulsing in her grip. He's breathing hard against her, he can't take more than a little of that, not this time, and he's about to dislodge her gently when she sits up and finishes stripping him down with efficient hands, giving him time to regroup.

In thanks, he settles her back down and lets his mouth learn her by taste, from the hollow of her throat to the impossible softness of her breasts and the peaks of her nipples, the shadowy valley between and the smooth, toned lines of her belly. He feather-kisses around her navel to make her jump and let out a giggly exhale, and then bites gently below so she gasps in surprise and a rippling shudder rolls through her.

" _Fuck_ , Jamie…"

That's it. That's the sound in her voice that's haunted his dreams.

Her hands have landed in his hair, and her fingers grip there tightly. He hums a note of discovery and with God knows what inspiration, ducks lower to seek out and find the tab of her jeans zipper with the tip of his tongue. He gets it between his teeth and pulls down carefully as she curses some more in surprise, and tries to keep her hips still. He has to sit up a little and finish unbuttoning her by hand, but he's more than pleased, and grins wickedly at her expression. She lifts up and he pulls her jeans and panties off and lets them fall somewhere.

And then it's just them, fingertips and mouths and hot breaths on smooth skin, driving each other deeper into mindless hunger, needy kisses growing desperate. His hand slips down between her thighs just as she rises up into his touch, and suddenly he's right there, and she nods and murmurs something against his shoulder as he eases two fingers deep inside her, musky and slick and gripping him tight as ducks to graze her nipple with his teeth. _Jesus, Eddie._ Quiet groans seems to arise from somewhere between them as her whole body rolls upward with the rhythm of his fingers, his thumb sliding lightly over her clit, her knee splaying wider, her toes curling hard into the quilt underneath. He's as breathless as she, gasping with her, moving with her, feeling the inexorable tide of it pulling her closer to the brink. She's so close, and he wonders how much longer he can hold out, but her nails in his nape serve as a call she can't find the words for.

He stills his fingers, and draws back to see. Her eyes are huge and dark as she pulls him up over her, and then she's reaching to slide her hand over his aching cock, and drawing him down, and _there_ , ohgod, _there_ , he's slipping into her, warm and snug and _so, so soft_ , and they're falling into each other again, surging and thrusting and rising, her cries echoing the groans he can't keep back, it's too much, it's too good, it's Eddie, it's _Eddie_ …

Her name on his lips sends her over the edge with a hard, wracking shudder, and he tumbles after her.

* * *

He drifts up through the layers of sleep with the sensation that he's been hearing a small noise for a while, and it's time to pay attention to it. He opens his eyes and blinks.

Eddie's standing in the doorway of his room, completely nude. She has a cut-up apple and some cheese on a small plate.

"Hey," she murmurs. "I got hungry. Okay?"

It's very okay. He grabs a slice of cheese and apple himself. She sets the plate on the nightstand and crawls back into bed with him.

He nuzzles behind her ear and she squirms in pleasure. "How you doing?"

"Good," she drawls happily. "But you're gonna have to keep actual snacks around if we're gonna be doing that before bed. My stomach was _growling_."

"Oh, poor you."

"I know, I'm gonna fade away."

"Well, we can always keep it to before dinner. Mornings, maybe. Wait, you're not a morning person. Afternoons?"

"In the cruiser? Eww." She giggles. "At least we're usually home by five on a normal shift."

He hums an amused response, but her words have started them on the return loop back to reality.

This is what they swore they wouldn't do. It's going to mean lying, because there's no way they're going to back away from this, now that they're finally here.

But that can wait for now. It's nearly four o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday, the shadowland between night and day. They can push reality away awhile longer.

He slides his arm down her side and begins kissing his way down her bare shoulder and side, easing the quilt away as he does. She murmurs her pleasure and her breath picks up as she waits to see what he has in mind. His mouth moves along her side to her hip, and when he lingers there, she shifts onto her back and slides her fingers through his hair.

"So good, Jamie."

Her words, low and sweet and husky, slide deep into him and lodge under his ribs.

He pulls back and looks up at her, and it's so much better than his imaginings. It's _Eddie_ , lying in his bed, watching his eyes feasting on her as her arousal deepens. She leaves him caught between wanting her and wanting only to send her into her pleasure.

Together, they watch as his fingers trace tentative patterns over her skin, mapping and noting her every response. By the time his mouth follows the path of his fingers, down to the neat curls at her center, her breath is coming quick and loud, her hands clenching unconsciously on his shoulder.

When finally he's on his knees before her, her hips are shifting and bucking of their own volition as his mouth finds the silken skin of the inside of her thigh, and she's panting and pleading. Another time, he'll make her wait a little, but not tonight. He urges her thigh out a little more, and spreads his hand over the firm muscles, pinning her in place.

"Oh, fuck…" she coughs out, and shoves two fingers in her mouth to stop a cry, as his mouth and tongue kiss and taste her sensitive hidden lips, her little clit already stiff, her muscles all rippling and clenching down there. His mind reels at the feel of her, the taste of her. In all his lonely fantasies, he never came near the sensation of her groans vibrating all through her so he could feel them through his mouth on her.

He keeps his tongue soft on her, slow little licks and kisses until she's whining and arching against him, desperate for any kind of friction. He has to stop himself grinding against the bed, his cock hard again and aching for release even so soon after they last made love. When he's had about all he can stand, and Eddie is cursing him out and tugging at his hair, he leaves her soaked and throbbing and moves up her body, rolling them both over.

She likes that a whole lot, and rewards him with a greedy, dirty kiss to drink in the taste of them both, and an expression that says he's lucky he didn't make her wait another second. He grins back. He'll take whatever she wants to dole out, after that. And he's a lucky, lucky man, because she sits up on his thighs, her skin glowing damp and golden, her hair mussed like a pale nimbus around her face, and rises up on her knees. And as he watches, tongue-tied with the feel of her, she gets them lined up and sinks down with him inside her, all the way till he's bottomed out and she's leaning forward with her hands on his chest.

For a moment they stay there, eyes locked. How can this be real? _He can feel her pulse from inside her_. The thought makes him pulse hard, too, and her eyes fuzz over slightly. Then she rises up, a small sigh escaping her with the feel of it, and begins to ride him, slowly at first, pleasuring herself along his length with every stroke. She keeps her pace, with the urging of his hands on her ass and his knees pulled up behind her for more friction, and finally speeding up, sending them hurtling toward a release he feels start deep in his spine, the pressure and intensity building and building until he can't see he can't breathe he can't hear his own cries all he knows is the white-out pleasure and release that doesn't seem to end, and finally…finally it's just he and Eddie, two exhausted lovers collapsed against each other, catching their breaths in the stunned aftermath.


	3. Chapter 3

May 5th, 2018: Saturday afternoon

"I'm helping."

"You're really not."

"I'm helping you relax," he insists, his hands stroking firmly up the backs of her thighs, pinching and kneading. "Relaxation is key to long-term memory retention."

She's sprawled on her stomach in Jamie's bed, with nothing but the afternoon sun draped across her skin, and the Sergeant's Exam Study Guide open on the pillow in front of her. Jamie had promised to leave her alone for a good hour to work, while he went to pick up his laundry and a proper meal for them, but he's back now, and clearly not going anywhere.

First he'd brought her brunch in bed on a tray, waffles and fruit salad and a double side of bacon, and fed her bites every time she got a multiple choice question right. That took some time, because she'd had to kiss him after every bite. Then, she read out the next scenario they were working through, while he finished his own waffles. "Multiple input modes to optimize comprehension," he nodded happily. It worked, though, and she admitted she would not have thought to read the section aloud if she'd been alone.

Then, with brunch cleared away, he'd lain beside her as she read aloud again, murmuring answers and offering insights. He apparently didn't consider himself distracting, stretched out naked on his back, his hands linked behind his head as he pondered. He reminded her of a lion lazily showing her his belly in a gesture of trust. The casual intimacy of it got her in the throat, and she suddenly thought, with a wild flutter, _Oh. What if…this might be the first day of forever_?

He'd noticed her freaking out silently beside him, and nodded. He knew. He stretched out an arm for her to burrow against him, and hugged her close as she hid her face in his side with a fit of nervous giggles. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours, but it was as natural as any of the weird adventures they'd been on in their whole relationship.

Then, after another kiss and a stroke of her palm down and over his irresistible chest and stomach that had him diving hungrily for her mouth, she'd eased back and taken a deep breath, and bartered for one more hour of real studying. The weekends were really her best time to apply herself for more than a half hour here and there, and she wanted to make the best of it, naked Jamie or not. So she'd flipped onto her stomach so she could only see a sliver of him at a time, and settled herself to reading again.

After twenty minutes of steady progress, he rolls over, and she feels soft lips on her nape and kisses whispering down her spine. She shudders all over and a gasp escapes her. But then –

" _Focus_ ," he teases.

She feels his confident touch on her like he already knows where to press, where to unlock the tension of the week. She can feel little deep-tissue tremors and small muscles unlocking in the wake of his hands, and a languorous arousal building. It would be so easy to drop the books and pull him down to her. But part of their game has always been the give-and-take, and putting him off for a while longer will only lead to good things later. Especially since it hasn't been very many hours since their last enthusiastic go-round, and the longer she makes him wait, the better they'll both enjoy it.

"This is important, Reagan," she reminds him, after a few delicious minutes. "Less than three weeks to go. Top five candidates who pass over eighty get fast-tracked into the Leadership Development Program. This is our best chance to be able to come clean about us and not have it affect our jobs. If we're gonna have to ride apart, that'll take some of the sting out of it."

"I have faith in you," Jamie says sweetly, and leans forwards to quite literally kiss her ass. It is, after all, staring him in the face, and since last night it's become one of his favorite bits of her. Or, at least, he's admitted it now. "And that's my goal, too. But you have more options than that. I just mean you don't have to have this one exam hanging over you. Dad was serious about offering you your choice of assignments."

"My choice of assignments in any other precinct," she says. "I don't know whether he was trying to get us to split up and get on with…getting on…or not, but whatever career moves I make, I want them to be on my own merit. And when we do go public, Jamie, I do not want anybody ever thinking that I used your father to get anywhere. At all."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. It's common for officers who get injured in the line to be offered some latitude in what happens next. It's supposed to be good for us psychologically as much as anything."

He's working on her left calf now, and ohhh, she's never going to dread leg day at the gym anymore if she has one of these to look forward to afterwards. Who knew? But it figures: he's probably read not only massage tips but academic kinesiology articles.

"I get that. I do. But it's the look of the thing."

"No, you're probably right. Blue line gossip is worse than Drudge sometimes, and just as persistent. And probably you'd end up in the same weird zone I'm in, where nobody's ever going to put my name in for Detective in case it looks like _they're_ looking for a favor. Better we do an end run around all that. By the time we're looking at the next big jump to Lieutenant or Captain, who knows, but it won't be my father in charge."

"Mm." She nods slowly. Frank has almost certainly been entitled to his full pension for some time, and has been deciding year to year whether to keep working.

Then it hits her.

"Jamie, that's like fifteen or twenty years away."

"Yeah?"

"You're thinking of how our being together is going to affect us _twenty years_ from now?"

"Well, yeah."

She sits up and turns around to face him. He holds out his two hands, palms towards her, and she laces her fingers through his, her head to one side as she watches him.

"I mean, in what universe are we not going to be together in twenty years?" he continues. His voice is as calm and matter-of-fact as ever, but his eyes are warm, warm, and she can see his heart rate picking up. It's a dazzling thought. Not only the cascade of images of what their lives might look like in twenty years, but the thought of knowing at the outset that they'll be getting there together. It's breathtaking.

"Too much too soon?" he asks, softly, running his thumb over hers.

She shakes her head. "If I didn't plan on this being the long haul, I wouldn't be here," she says. "You don't gamble five years of everything we have for anything less. I feel like we wasted a lot of time just getting here."

"Or, we've got a five year head-start and a whole lot of formative experiences very few other couples ever get."

"Like hanging out naked in bed studying for a promotion together?" She pulls him towards her as she leans back into the pillows again, and he braces his arms over her, grinning.

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"

"I dunno, but I got some more studying up to do. Call it an intensive course."

She runs her fingers down his stomach and over one carved hipbone. He closes his eyes and a slow shiver travels through him.

"Intense is right."

Her fingers keep moving and circle back to the front, sliding up his side, counting off each rib.

"You like that?"

"Oh, God. All of it, anything. Just – keep doing it."

She knows what it's like to be touched again after a long, long, time, and he's gone years longer than she ever did. She can only imagine. She can practically feel the rippling sparks under his skin.

"Eddie," he murmurs. Her name on his lips sounds like a caress.

"Come lie down," she whispers, low. "Let me touch you."

* * *

It's nearing midnight.

Except for a brief evening foray to the deli a block away, she's been hanging out in Jamie's bed all day, but she's gotten plenty of exercise there, and a few solid hours of studying and general household puttering online.

After a lovely sleepy shower together, she's tucked into his side, her head on his shoulder, and he's stroking her hair in a rhythm that's about to send her right off, when she has a thought.

"Hey, Jamie?"

"Mm?"

"What if – what if one of us just beats the other for the fifth spot in the Leadership Program?"

"Then whoever wins it takes it," he says, still playing with her hair. "Fair game. I don't want you thinking of giving up your spot, and honestly, I wouldn't either, unless there was something unfair about the marking. I'm not worried. It's not like we're going head-to-head and disagreeing over a major case. This is just one test." He stops stroking. "We've always been at our best when we put each other through our paces, anyway. Don't ever hold back from getting up in my face just because we've got a whole other side to us, now."

"Oh, you better believe it."

"That said, I'm not going to either, but I hope we're better at not actually damaging each other than we used to be."

"Definitely." She nuzzles into the warm skin of his chest and takes a breath. "In fact that's something I decided to work on a long, long time ago."

"Me, too," he tells her. She feels his lips touch her temple, and smiles. "I don't know if you know I've made a lot of promises to you over the years, just in my head."

"Not just you," she says. She turns her head and plants a drowsy kiss over his heart. "Me, too."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Like what?"

"Later," she tells him. "You've worn me right out and that's a big conversation."

"Okay," he murmurs. "Okay. Get some sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

He slides her down onto the sheets, and pulls the quilt up over her. She feels the comfortable weight of his arm draped over her, and replays his last words over and over as she drifts off.

* * *

May 6th, 2018: Sunday

Sunday dinner is a challenge. It's good to see everyone, of course, and God knows he could use a proper home-cooked meal after the past week of Clif bars on the run followed by marathon sex with hasty takeout pickups in between. But keeping his face free of hint is difficult.

"Good week?" Erin asks. Okay, maybe his greeting hug was a little exuberant.

"Good week. Rescued a newborn baby, got her back to her parents, even got a public thank-you after we got yelled at for working unapproved overtime. Hard to beat that," he says, allowing himself a grin. He gets a chuck on his shoulder from his big sister.

"Attaboy."

She seems to accept this as a reason, and asks him to tell as much of the story as he can over a first glass of wine before dinner. She has no idea the gift she's given him. Being able to spin a yarn with a happy ending is the perfect cover for the leaping bursts of happiness he's fighting to contain. Even Danny gets into it, with a couple of baby-rescue stories of his own, and cautionary baby-snatching tales he remembers from Linda's years as a nurse.

"Don't they put electronic beepers on babies now?" Nicky asks. She's apparently invited herself into the pre-dinner wine club in the sitting room, but hers is in a sherry glass.

"They do, but this baby had already been discharged," Jamie explained. "They were waiting for the baby's father to bring the car around when the woman, the fake nurse, came up and said they needed to do one more test they'd forgotten. She even made it sound like she was scared she was going to get in trouble for releasing them too soon, and the mother promised not to tell on her."

Nicky shudders. "I'm having all mine at home."

"Not any time soon, I hope," Erin replies.

Jamie is glad that the conversation takes a sharp turn to Nicky's career aspirations before he spends too much time thinking of Eddie holding tiny Marisa. He hadn't known before that wanting to wrap them both in his arms and keep everyone else away was a hard-wired biological reflex, his atavistic hindbrain recognizing his woman with an infant, and it was with conscious effort that he'd stopped himself.

Eddie and babies: that's a relatively new thing. She's always scoffed at the notion of biological clocks, and it's not as though she's caught up in pure biology, but…unless he's way off base, there's some connection to be made between the intense experience they shared at Little Eddie's birth, the fleeting moment they shared in confessing _they both wanted that, too,_ and her laser focus on rescuing Marisa even against direct orders. It's possible the thing with Barry was part of that, too, in a subconscious way.

They should pay a visit to Manuel and Angela and see how Little Eddie is getting along, he thinks. Little Eddie loves his honorary aunt and uncle and accepts their silly games and gifts in a way that's easier to deal with than Manuel and Angela calling them guardian angels.

Later, his father challenges them all to come up with a great story that began with a text exchange. Jamie sees his point, but the world of communication really has changed.

He thinks of the endless texts that have knit his siblings back together after rows that ended badly, or let them organize memorable family events in secrecy. He thinks of the small confessions and requests for advice that he's received over the years from the kids, without their parents' knowledge. Messages that document his and Eddie's entire relationship, beginning with Tony Renzulli's hasty _Reagan: go meet your new partner out front. Name is Eddie Janko. Sorry I can't introduce you. I'll catch you later and explain._

Maybe texts are just the fibers that make up the fabric of great modern stories, but they matter.

Letter-writing is a good idea, though. He may have a lot of ground to make up in speaking his feelings, but writing is something he can do.

He spends the rest of dinner composing in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

May 7th, 2018: Monday morning

Eddie walks into the Ladies' Locker Room at the one-two at seven o'clock on Monday morning feeling a little like she did when she was sixteen and had had sex with Mitchell for the first time over the weekend, and was convinced that every single person who looked at her would know it. Given that she's just walked into a warren of highly trained, suspicious investigators who can sniff a lie at twenty paces, she might be right this time.

She and Jamie have decided to keep their new and improved relationship very quiet for the time being. This is the place they swore they'd never go, keeping secrets from their team and risking having to lie. They've promised each other it's only temporary. One or both of them is certain to be promoted, before long, and then it won't matter.

It's not ideal. The thought of no longer being partners leaves her feeling dragged down and despondent already, even though life will go on and they will find a new normal. They should be excited at the thought of their careers taking off. They both know no police partnership lasts forever, but she can't imagine finding the same spark and challenge with any other partner or group of colleagues.

She lets out a gusty sigh and is grimacing at her heavy-eyed reflection in her locker mirror, when Walsh arrives.

"Whoa," Walsh says. "Rough weekend? Thought you guys were on days off."

"We were," Eddie says, "Just didn't sleep much, I guess. Mondays suck."

"Got that right," Walsh agrees, pulling off her high-heeled boots as she sits on the bench. She takes another look at Eddie's face and asks bluntly, "How's what's-his-face? Did you see him at all?"

Eddie actually has to think for a second. "Barry? Oh…no," she says. "We, um, decided that's not going anywhere."

"Course you did," Walsh mutters, getting up to rummage in her locker.

"What?"

"Nothing," Walsh says.

Eddie sighs. "We were never going to have time to see each other, not to have any kind of real relationship."

"Did you want that with him?"

"I don't even…not really, no."

"So what's the problem, girlfriend? You look just sick about something. You and Reagan didn't have one of your – ?" and Walsh gestures something like a cartoon fight.

"No, God, no."

"What, then? C'mon, we've got ten minutes before Roll Call. Don't let it take up your whole day, whatever it is."

"Karabella, I know you mean well. Honest. And I'd love to talk, but – not just now, okay? I promise, I'll explain soon."

"Of course you will," Walsh says, "because I'll find it out my own, otherwise."

"No doubt."

It takes Walsh approximately three minutes into Roll Call to figure it out, standing behind them. Eddie's not sure what exactly she notices, as Jamie comes to stand next to her like he does every morning, but something triggers Walsh's antennae. Eddie can feel her glance pass from the middle of her back to Jamie's.

"Why aren't you dancing down the hallways?" she demands in a whisper, as they head back to the locker room to gather their car bags. "It's about fucking time, girl!"

Eddie whirls on her and looks grim. "Okay, for starters, nobody, and I mean nobody, can know a thing," she whispers back.

"You know I got your back," Walsh says, a little hurt, as she pushes the door open. For once Eddie's glad there are so few women in the house. Once Kath McGlynn heads out, only she and Walsh are left.

"I know. Thank God. How the hell did you figure it out?" she asks, low.

"You usually lean in towards each other the tiniest bit. You weren't doing that. It was like you were trying not to look like close at all."

"And _that_ tipped you off?"

"Only at first. Then I saw how you were both paying attention to Tony and Hollis, like you were in Sunday School or something. You were practically wearing halos."

"Ah."

"And then he didn't follow after you when we left the hall."

"He didn't…what?"

"I've known you guys for what, four years? I know when you're fighting. This isn't that. You've been off with each other all month 'cause of Beardo Barry, but you haven't been fighting about it, though God knows I could've pummelled _you,_ you little heartbreaker. Then today you turn up looking like you've been through a wringer, and Jam-o doesn't look all concerned and follow you around till you yell at him? That is _so_ not you guys. If you're losing sleep, he knows why already, and I bet you the moon it's because of him. So it's finally here and neither of you wants to break up your partnership, or lie to everyone. Am I right?"

Eddie slumps against the luggage racks that hold everyone's car bags. "You're right," she admits dully. "Crazy, isn't it? Here we are, after all this time, and there's this shadow over it. All we can think about is how much it's gonna suck not working together. I mean, yeah, policing isn't supposed to be about that. It's just that we're so much better at it together."

"You are. You're one of the most experienced and reliable units out there." Walsh comes to stand beside her, and crosses her arms. "You guys didn't have some solution in mind before you hooked up? I figured that was pretty much all you were waiting for, until Barry came along."

Eddie winces. "Can we not mention him? He's been a real stand-up guy, but I still feel bad."

"Gladly."

"As to solutions, we're sort of pinning a lot of hopes on the Sergeant's Exam right now. One or both of us is pretty certain to pass well. And that'll mean that as soon as we get new placements, we can 'fess up and be together for real. I mean in public."

"Ahh."

"Is that crazy?"

"No, not at all, but you're right, it'll suck not riding together. If you were dating, like, _any_ other partner, nobody would care unless you imploded like fucking Kelsey. But because it's Jamie, you're stuck under the microscope with him."

"Which we're prepared to deal with. If we can just get through the next few weeks." She looks over at Walsh. "Am I forgiven for not telling you right away, Karabelle?"

"Are you kidding? I haven't had so much fun in Roll Call since Santa came to visit. C'mon. Let's go keep some fucking peace around here."

* * *

May 8, 2018: Tuesday Afternoon

It starts out sensibly enough. They're brainstorming where the Escobars might have put a five million dollar windfall, since Manuel's new car is clearly a victory trophy of sorts, and Mama Escobar has a brand new designer wardrobe. Then, in need of levity, they lapse into the If I Had A Million game, or rather, Five Million. Eddie starts with a modest condo with a bit of a view, close enough to Manhattan to be near the action, but far enough away to afford a couple extra rooms and a large bathroom with an infinity tub.

He tries not to think of Eddie lounging in an infinity pool.

"Okay, million for the apartment, a hundred and fifty for the Turbo," Jamie repeats her list.

"Turbo S-Cabriolet, all the trimmings, special-order green paint," Eddie interjects, "More like two-thirty."

She'd know. While Silver Belle the little Boxter is her one true love, she keeps up with the newer Porsches, too. She and Manuel share a taste in automobiles.

"Okay. So you're at one point two, out of five."

"Million for savings, a million for charity."

"What charity?" he asks, curious.

They've never played this before. He doesn't know how much of her moneyed past still lingers as a difficult shard of her psyche. Even in her party-girl days after her father's business empire collapsed, she kept her classy tastes, and she still loves her stolen moments of window-shopping Designer Row when their patrols take them there. But she's never once lamented about being on a junior cop budget, or mentioned what must have been a jarring downshift from a generous allowance to nothing but her own earnings. Mental sportscar shopping is her version of fantasy football, he figures. Even Silver Belle isn't an indulgence so much as a prudent investment. What she puts into maintaining the nearly twenty-year-old car every year wouldn't even be a downpayment on a Turbo.

He has a new interest in the question now, though.

He wants to be sure they're on the same page financially, for one thing – that even with their combined resources, she won't be always hankering after a quality of life that's beyond them. While his father's house is worth something, it took a thirty-year mortgage and two incomes, plus help from Pop and Grandma, and hard choices. They're a multi-generational family of public servants, used to frugality and hand-me-downs and chasing scholarships.

Besides, he's curious what she'd do with small fortune. You learn a lot about people that way. And he'd love to see her with everything her heart desires around her. He wishes he could give her that.

She starts going on about research beagles and pasting him about his old leather jacket, and he thinks he has something of an answer. Daydreaming is great, but that's for fun and silliness. Nothing beats reality. Certainly not theirs.

* * *

May 8th, 2018: Tuesday Evening

They'd planned to spend the night at Jamie's, but they've just finished sharing an Indian takeout dinner in front of the news, when Jamie's grandfather calls. From what she can hear on her end, she gathers that Frank has some concerns with the current rash of brazen daylight assassinations being somehow connected with the Prospect Park Six case, and thereby, with Erin's boss' murder, and the Escobar family as well.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her, "Pop's calling a family conclave to get everyone's heads together. And I wouldn't mind seeing how Erin's doing for myself. Monica's death really rattled her. Understandably."

"No, no, you gotta go," she says immediately. This sounds very serious. "You want me to stick around here, or can you drop me at the train on your way out?"

"Please stay," he says. "Hang out and read, watch TV, whatever you like. I don't think we'll go late, but I'll let you know." He takes a breath, and stands up from the couch. "In fact…I was gonna give you something tonight. C'mere."

Curious, she takes his outstretched hand, and lets him pull her up. He leads her into his room, where he goes to his bedside table and opens the small drawer. She knows what's in it: the usual assortment of trinkets and useful stuff, and lately, the dark chocolate with cocoa nibs that she likes, and a bottle of apricot kernel massage oil. He plucks out an envelope she doesn't recognize, and hands it to her.

"I, uh, had a brainwave at family dinner. I'm, um, way better at writing things down. So – here. I'm gonna go, and you take your time reading this. Make yourself at home, okay? Have a bath, crash early if you want to – I, uh, I'll be back as soon as I can."

He's blathering. He's _blushing_.

"Am I gonna cry over what's in here?" she asks, with a wry grin.

He returns the grin and rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, maybe? We'll talk about it later. I better go." He gives her one of those soft looks that gets her every time, leans down to kiss her warmly, and turns away.

She watches him leave, hears the apartment door click shut, and only then does she sit on Jamie's bed and open the envelope to see what's inside.

It's plain letter-writing paper, two sheets of it, and the sight of his handwriting gives her pause. Jamie has two scripts: scratchy small printing, as if he can't get all his thoughts down fast enough, or an old-fashioned sloping longhand, as he was taught by the nuns at school. Apparently she rates a second draft, because it's beautifully written in a rich, heavy blue ink, befitting a good quality pen.

"Eddie,

(She lingers over how he's written her name, with a flourish and clear affection.)

We spoke the other night of promises we've made to each other. I have so many more to make to you, not the least of which is to keep learning to talk about the things that mean the most to me, to the people who mean the most to me. This is a first step.

The first promise I made was on the same night we met. You were so fierce, so intent on proving yourself. I promised you then that I would always give you the best of me. Not because of the oath I swore, not because of my family, but for you. I wanted to make sure that I could be everything you needed, to give you the very best chance to fulfil your ambitious spirit. Even if you made it difficult.

(She laughs aloud at that. Too true.)

The first night you asked me to keep watch with you during a hard night, I realized that we were no longer two partners anymore, but a unit. I promised you then that if ever you had fought beyond your strength, I'd pick up your sword and keep fighting in your place, and learn to let you fight for me when I needed it. Preferably beforehand. I am working on that. Because you are more than my best friend and my partner in arms. The work we do is often thankless and discouraging, and you always remind me, whenever my spirits flag, that we're fighting the good fight.

There are so many more I can't wait to tell you about. This is just a beginning.

I love you. I love you. I love you. There, I said it.

Jamie"

 _Oh, Jamie._

She can barely breathe. She feels like laughing and crying and she hugs herself in a welter of feeling and wishes he was there. It's not like she didn't know these things, but _oh, Jamie…_

The impact of his words is not lessened by the careful weight he gives each one. The fact that he's trying _so hard_ , and for her, sends another warm wave of affection and sharp sweetness through her. She thinks of the promises she's made him, in her way, and wonders how she can best explain them to him.

She folds the letter carefully and puts it back in its envelope. She leans over and slides it back into the drawer of his nightstand. Something catches a corner, and she looks down.

It's a small ring-box, quite old, covered in pale green velvet gone smooth at the corners. She's spotted it before, but never asked about it. Curious, she lifts it out and opens it very carefully. It's a simple but beautifully made ring in gold filigree over a plain band, with a small central winking diamond and two tiny emeralds inset between the twisting strands. She's never seen anything like it. A custom piece, likely, and quite old, from the type of pin-setting and the hand-worked threads. It's likely a family ring, though he's never mentioned it. Whose was it, originally? Does he always keep it there, or has he some purpose in mind?

 _Speaking of promises…_

She quickly puts it back in the drawer, the letter safely on top, and shuts everything away. Then swings her legs up onto the bed and stretches out on her back, thinking.

What would it mean to join his family? It _seems_ that's what they're both thinking of, at some point. The Reagans are such a fortress of a family, with traditions and connections she can't quite fathom being entirely part of. She wishes she had any sort of family that Jamie could feel welcomed within. It's ironic that her father, whose crimes were driven largely by his desire to be accepted by the elite Establishment, and to prove his worth, is now residing in prison, and her mother, who she sees only rarely, has gone on to live quietly with a new partner. Surely the Reagans must all know about her background by now. She can't imagine Frank not asking for a background on his son's partner, or Erin not casually checking out public court records. Not with any malicious intent, but because that's what Reagans do.

She curls up with her head on one pillow and pulls the other one towards her to hug. She hopes things are going all right at the family meeting, and that he comes home soon. She thinks hard about which of her promises she wants to try to put into words most of all, and eventually drifts away.

It's nearing eleven when Jamie returns. He's sliding carefully onto the bed behind her, down to his boxers, and wrapping an arm around her to gather her close.

"Hey," he murmurs, pressing small kisses into the side of her neck. She smiles and eases herself back against him.

"Hey, you. Everything okay?"

"I think so. I'm going to have to be careful for a while, but I'm not worried."

Her brain picks up the slack as she wakes up. "Hm. Your dad thinks the cases are connected after all?"

"It looks like they might be. It's hard to say, but when every cop at the table has the same gut check…"

"They're connected."

"Pretty much."

"Mmm." She digests this for a moment. "That was a beautiful letter. Thank you," she says. She doesn't roll over to face him, not yet. She knows he does better not having to make eye contact over some things. But she slides her hand over his, and brings it up to her lips to brush kisses over his knuckles.

"Was it okay?" he asks, sounding almost shy.

"Okay? Jamie, it was…yes. Yes, it was okay. More than okay. And okay that that's how you chose to tell me."

A small breath escapes him. "I'm glad." He holds her a little tighter and buries his face in her hair. "Eddie?"

"Mm hmm?"

"I love you."

His voice falls on her ear like sweet gruff caramel. She feels herself melt.

He goes on, seemingly uncorked: "I went like twenty over the limit the whole way home because I wanted to tell you tonight, in words, and I didn't realize how late it was, and I know you know it, but I still – "

She rolls over, and shuts him up with a few kisses that have his hands threading through her hair and his breath coming short.

"I love _you_ ," she tells him, sliding herself on top of him. "I love you so much. I think I've been in love with you from the beginning, but I couldn't – I couldn't believe it. And when I did, there was nothing I could do about it."

He kisses her again, hard. "I meant it, you know. Twenty years is just the beginning. I'm in it for the long haul."

"Well, I'm not planning on going anywhere," she says, seriously. Then: "Hey – there's a – when I was putting your letter back, I saw a ring box, and I was curious, so I…got curious," she finishes, somewhat lamely. He chuckles.

"I bet you did. The ring was my mother's. It was her engagement ring. My dad gave it to me."

"Ohh," she nods. That makes sense. "Sydney?"

"Mm hmm. But I keep it because of Mom." He looks up at her seriously through those killer lashes. "It wouldn't feel right giving you that one. Believe me, I've thought about it. Not just because of Sydney. There's a whole lot of family tradition and expectations caught up in that piece of jewelry, and as much as I respect that, it doesn't represent _me_. Not the way it used to. And certainly not us."

"You've thought about – "

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Not just recently, either. I guess starting two, three years ago. I'd go from thinking that's where we'd ultimately end up, to...thinking I was being an idiot."

She leans down and kisses him, and finds herself nuzzling into his bare shoulder. In the last few days, it's become her favorite place to rest her head. "You are many things, Jamie, but an idiot is not one of them. We need to talk more about this, and soon. But we have to be up in six hours. And this sounds like another after-we've-slept conversation."

"Probably," he agrees. He lets her up so she can start getting out of the clothes she fell asleep in. "We're going to have to keep a list at night or something. But since I'm trying to say important things in words more – when I say 'the long haul' and talk about giving you a ring, I'm talking about marriage. Like forever. To you."

She looks over at him, with one arm hanging out of her shirt.

"Reagan, are you proposing? Right now? Just so we're crystal clear."

He laughs softly. "Not _right_ now. Just making sure we're using the same words for the same things, so you know where my head's at. And the rest of me. Believe me, you'll know."

"Okay, because your timing there...help me out, would you."

"Help you get naked? I hope you never have to actually ask."


	5. Chapter 5

May 9, 2018: Wednesday

It's a day full of small events that may each turn out to hold the seed of something far greater.

He explains Frank's hunch more fully to Eddie, after Roll Call but before her second coffee, and she does not take it well.

"So whoever's been randomly killing people in Manhattan at close range is either one of the Six, or knows them? _And we stood there in total sympathy with them_?"

"We don't know for sure. They can't get those nine years back, and five million isn't that much in the grand scheme to make up for it. But we're pretty sure one of them is the doer, guy called Dewan Wilson. And even if he knows we're sympathetic to what they went through, that might not mean much. Dewan might decide to take it out on any of us. Or one of the kids."

"Fucking insane. Who's got the kids?"

"The boys are being driven by our people, hand-picked by Baker. They're in school right now, and then going straight to Dad's house after, not theirs. Nicky's working from there today, instead of going to classes. Then everyone will get driven home after dinner. Or not. We're playing it by ear. We've had to go through high-alerts like this before. I'm afraid it's part of being a Reagan sometimes."

He shrugs and watches her carefully as he says this. She throws him a look that says she's got her fight on, and mutters something rude in Serbo-Croatian as she heads to her desk.

With Frank's warnings in mind, they play it safe for much of the day, catching up on paperwork at the office, and staying mostly in their cruiser when they venture out. Except for a follow-up call on the Escobars. Jamie doesn't think the Escobar family can be directly involved in the assassinations, or if they are, they won't try anything in their own apartment, with Eddie there as well.

Eddie takes one look at Mama Escobar, and still full of piss and vinegar, apparently forgets every particle of public relations diplomacy she's ever learned. But it's a funny thing about Eddie: the moments when she seems to fly off the handle, or jumps in with both feet without looking, often have a catalytic effect and turn out to be the magic ingredient. It's not so much cop instinct as her close read on human micro-interactions and subtle tells that works faster than Jamie's logical leaps. It's taken him years to stop panicking when she does shit like this, and he'll probably never get used to it, but she's useful to have handy to break up a stalemate.

In this case, pissing off Mama Escobar is exactly what's needed to get Mama irate enough to put her body between Jamie and her boy Manuel. Which gives Jamie all the leverage he needs to remind her with a hard-eyed glance that _they're the cops, and she cannot get in the way of his passing his card to her adult son_. He doesn't like playing the hardass like that, but it won him a few points with Manuel, who can't be finding it easy to adjust to living with his controlling mother and out-of-control little brother.

Plus, Eddie is all about Jamie's tough-cop routine. She palms his ass out of view of the hallway cameras as they leave, and can't stop eyeing him with a little smile as they drive away.

"That was hot," she says finally.

"Save it," he sighs.

"For later?" she says. "Okay."

Their actions bear fruit at the end of their tour, when Manuel himself appears at the precinct. Jamie and Eddie share a look of _oh, here we go_ and head out to meet him. He sees Eddie quickly pat her smaller backup Sig in the small of her back as they walk, and he's glad he's got both her and his own backup weapon on him. Dewan sounds just crazy enough to send a shooter right into the cops' backyard.

It's copacetic, though, for once. Mama might have behaved herself around the cops, but she was quick to convince Manuel to give up Jamie's card once they were gone. Manuel's way of shaking off his mother and keeping the cops off his back was, sensibly enough, to approach Jamie in person with Dewan's contact number. And that's the seed he carries to Danny who takes it to Baez and McKenna, who plant it and let it grow into –

An alibi, as airtight as they come. Dewan, as far as multiple eyewitnesses and cellphone pings affirm, hasn't left Florida in days.

He'd planned to meet Eddie back at her place, after he and Danny were done at the four-five, but with Dewan's alibi intact, Frank calls another family conclave.

"I wish I could just bring you with," Jamie tells her, over the phone. "We could use you and Baez both on this. And McKenna."

"Hey, you can always message me for input," she says. "At least, even if Dewan's off the list, I know you'll all be safe there. Come over whenever you're done. Doesn't matter what time. Let me know when you leave, though, okay?"

"I will. Don't open the door for anyone but me."

"Not planning on it."

Between Frank setting up the shot, Jamie calling it and Danny taking it, the family finds the angle they need to sink the eight-ball. It's not Dewan Wilson they need to stop, but a hit man he's hired. They know the hit man's MO and the Prospect Point Six' prison contacts, and Frank will have staff working on case-to-case hits first thing in the morning. Danny makes arrangements to leave for Florida in person. The rest of them can sleep a little easier, in their own homes, knowing that a single gunman with a consistent MO is not going to stalk them into their houses where he can't peel away at high speed.

Having texted Eddie all of this information, he arrives at her place a little before ten o'clock, watchful of his back as he walks from curb to lobby, but otherwise feeling mighty fine. He and Eddie brought in a huge piece of that puzzle, and Frank was very pleased to hear it.

Eddie opens the door and pulls him inside. She's wearing a short cherry-red satin robe, her end-of-day glasses and a very determined expression. He lets out a small "Oh, wow," and bends down to kiss her thoroughly. Or tries to. After a moment she pushes him back gently.

"Jamie. Jamie, hang on. C'mere."

She leads him by the hand to the couch, where her coffee table is strewn with handwritten notes, her laptop open to the NYPD Operations Manual page, another tab with the Patrol Guide, and her old Academy notebooks. She's a few strings shy of a full paranoia map.

"What's all this?" he asks, finding room on the couch between Eddie and the Sergeant's Exam book. "I leave you alone for four hours and you turn into…what, are you looking to run for Union Shop Steward, too?"

"Walsh was right," she says, leaning forward and switching to a third tab on her laptop. This one is a police discussion forum. "About not letting it take up my whole day. I'm actually glad I was so mad that I went after Mrs. Escobar, 'cause that finally cleared out enough of my gunk that I could think– "

"Eddie. Take a breath. Seriously. What are you working on? Have you eaten yet?"

She looks at him with barely restrained impatience. "Yes. I'm perfectly serious. I've been throwing everything into this exam, so we can just move on, but I've been worrying myself sick about all the lying, and then what happens if neither of us pass? Or what if it takes a year or more for us to land Sergeant level assignments? There's no guarantee of _when_ they'll place you. So I started wondering, well, what's the actual worst case scenario for dating your partner, in the Code? What do they say will happen to you? And if we want to make a case and grieve it, or ask them to be sensible and let us ride out the last few months of our partnership together while we're being placed out, how would we go about doing that?"

Now the notes make sense. There are overlapping layers of policy, Patrol Guide and various unwritten but bedrock conventions that have no unified system or index.

"What'd you find?"

"That's just it. Nothing, Jamie. I can't find a single shred of policy on intimate relationships between partners."

He's silent for a full five seconds, staring somewhat blankly at her. "Nothing?"

"Nothing in the Ops Manual, nothing comes up with a whole whack of word searches in the Guide. I've found a bunch of cops and ex-cops complaining online about being outed as couples, but it's mostly same-sex couples dealing with harassment claims. There's a few anecdotal stories about partners having to choose who stays in which house. Some comments about supervisors being selectively blind and deciding which couples to split up and which they ignore."

"That can't be right. I mean, I trust your research, but – it's, like, one of the primary rules about partners."

"Don't screw the crew. I know."

"I mean, every military branch has, like, two dozen –"

"I know!" She waves at her pile of notes. "I was just about to start transcribing all this junk into a single document. Because the next thing to do, and I'm gonna need your help because the legalese will kill me, is to go into old Union disciplinary actions and grievances. They'll be open to all Union members, even if personnel files aren't. We can't get data on every couple who's been split up as partners, or who ordered them split up and why, but we might be able to look up any who actually grieved it to the Union."

She takes a breath and looks at him, really looks at him. He feels one of those revelations swim into place. He'd wondered how she'd made the leap from happy-go-lucky nouveau trust fund princess to very nearly _summa cum laude_ in Business in the midst of her father's highly publicized trial for fraud, to ranking fourth in her Academy class. He knows she's very bright and determined, but this is on a whole new level. This is panic in action, finding release in something concrete.

This is what she was like inside, going through dumpsters in the blowing bitter sleet for any sign of baby Marisa. And it's not just about the deception and the stress of an exam that will come around again eventually. She's internalized all of his family's heightened anxiety about the assassinations, too.

"Eddie?" he says quietly, slipping an arm around her shoulders. "I'm okay. I'm _okay_. And _we're_ going to be okay. This is amazing, what you've done. I wouldn't even have thought of it. But you can stand down."

She lets herself lean her against his shoulder. "I'm not losing it," she assures him. "This is just how I deal."

"I'm getting that. You are relentless. And you're going to crash hard, soon."

"I know. That's part of what I was aiming for."

"Ahh. When your brain won't shut off. I get that."

"I know you do. I figured I might learn something useful – but I didn't expect to find _nothing_."

"Well, I'm impressed." He brushes her hair with his nose, and kisses her crown. "But it's getting late. We'll come back to this tomorrow. I'll see what I can dig up on the case law and union hearing side. Meantime, I gotta tell you what Dad and Danny said about us getting Dewan's number out of Manuel. And then I'm gonna try and make you forget your own name. Deal?"

"Deal."


	6. Chapter 6

May 11, 2018: Friday Afternoon

Eddie's in the café getting them drinks, and Jamie is grateful. He needs it.

It's been a week of deeply fulfilling sex and emotional release after the mother of all monkish spells, which means that he is on a serious neurotransmitter high: relaxed and dozy in the late afternoon sun, and feeling pretty damned cocky and invincible. Eddie's downright giddy, full of attitude and whip-smart comebacks. It's all very well to whistle past the graveyard, but the truth is that that there was the potential for Jamie being targeted. Perhaps even Eddie, by extension, since revenge for love lost was at the heart of this tragic case.

But it's over now. They can relax. Danny brought Dewan back to New York yesterday on a marshalled flight home, in cuffs and leg irons, and Eddie is twenty feet away in the café. They're only an hour or two out from calling it a week and heading back to the house. Eddie's revelation about there being no policy on partners in intimate relationships working together has borne itself out, and neither of them has found a scrap of documentation that prohibits it. In fact, he thinks that quite a few cops might have legal grounds to grieve their reassignments or terminations on the basis of being illegally coerced into positions they didn't have to accept.

He rolls down the window for a breath of fresh air, and sinks down a few inches in his seat, idly fantasizing about a pre-dinner nap with his girlfriend before getting delivery sent up and then more sex. And a shower. He's never going to get used to showering with Eddie. Who knew his little badass could be so…soft and warm and pliant and needy?

And those sounds she makes when he gets his fingers just right…

Funny how the craziest shit always happens just before closing on Friday.

"'Scuse me. Officer."

He rolls his head in the direction of the voice, wondering for a split second why it's coming from the traffic-side and not the street-side.

He'll never know whether he heard the shots first or Eddie screaming his name, but as he dives and flattens himself across the bench seat, the window over his head shatters and his ears seem to register the two shots only after the muzzle-flashes.

Only then does he realize the last two shots were Eddie's.

 _He should be dead._

The silenced pistol was less than two feet away, and that face – it had to have been Dante – held no nervous tension, only a sort of resignation. Dante knew he would be equally likely to be killed by a cop as kill a cop.

It seems to take long minutes for his ribcage to expand and his heart to beat, though it's less than a second. Is he hit? Is he in shock and bleeding out unknowingly?

 _It doesn't matter_. If he can move at all, Eddie's still out there.

He doesn't even brush the glass out of his collar. He's out the door and hard on her heels in under three seconds. She's in firing stance again, the back of Dante's head in her sights, and the black BMW is nearly out of range, but she fires one more time and shatters the back windshield.

Hit, or disoriented, Dante's escape acceleration takes him directly into the back of another car parked against the immovable bulwark of a bridge support pillar.

They advance together towards the car, not needing to look at each other.

After he checks on Dante and pronounces him, time and sounds seems to surge around them again.

It feels like two hours.

It's only been ten seconds.

He realizes Eddie hasn't said anything. He turns to her, and she's staring, not at Dante's bloodied head, but at him, her gun dangling limply in her hand as she stands immobile. He gets it, he thinks. He never gets used to watching her run straight into danger – which is probably a good thing. They're not supposed to get used to it. And this is something they're going to have to work through as partners. As lovers. As spouses. They'll never know when their day is up, not on this job.

But today is not that day, and he feels the crackling pulse of adrenaline really settling into his limbs now, and he's so proud of Eddie he could bust.

"That was some shot," he says. She's the only person he could ever say that to, with a dead man sitting two feet away, without it being wildly inappropriate. But when that man was trying to kill him, and nearly succeeded, just a moment ago…he's nearing slight hysteria with relief, and fights down the impulse to throw back his head and laugh. "You saved my life."

Her voice comes back to her now, and she tries to contain everything, but she's barely coherent. It doesn't matter. He understands.

"Jamie. It was like…I heard a voice. I swear to God."

"That's called a radio," he deadpans giddily.

"No," she manages a breathless laugh, "Serious. It's like I knew. I knew you were in trouble even…before you even…were, like I was…warned?" her voice trails off into a quaver.

Then he understands. It's not the shooting getting to her. It's him. It's _them_. The part of them that has become enmeshed, entwined, that has taken on a presence of its own over the years. Their natural self-preservation instinct and trained cop intuition _includes each other_ now. This is who they are. All the insane risks and extra miles they go, that they could never undertake alone. As partners, they are each other's hidden sidearms. As lovers, they are each other's saving grace.

If time was stretched out and elastic before, it's passing all too fast now. His arms are open to catch her almost before she launches herself into them, his name a low cry on her lips. He gathers her tight and doesn't give a damn who sees what. They've always been a fighting unit. They will always have each other's backs and comfort each other when they need, and anyone who has a problem with that had better leave them alone.

Eddie's caught between tears and hiccupping laughs, and all he knows is that he wants to share everything he has, everything he is, with her. And as she finds her safe place in his arms and lets it all hit her, he knows that everything he has won't ever be enough to show her what she means to him.

"I'd spend the five million on you," he tells her. It's true, he would, but in their shared language of retorts and in-jokes, he knows she understands his meaning.

What they have is utterly precious and real, and no fantasy comes close.

The sirens begin to cluster as they stand under the bridge together. The attending officers assume Eddie's hurt or in shock, never having seen her like this at a scene, but they look away from Jamie's steady stare at them, over her head. The vast majority of officers never even draw their weapons in their entire career, after all, and this is the second man whose life Eddie has taken on the job. Most of them will never know what that's like.

It's not long before the scene is corded and contained, and they're sitting across from each other on the stoops of two ambulances that have drawn up, being checked over. Jamie has two or three shards of safety glass caught in the skin of his back, which he doesn't even feel as they pluck them out, as amped up as he is. Other than that, they're both as whole and healthy as if they were winding down any other shift.

 _He should be dead._

He looks over at Eddie, who is nearly vibrating in place, her hands shaking now as she speaks to their Lieutenant. He thinks of the lists of mythical figures and gods known for striding into Hades and Gehenna, Hell and Valhalla, to claim vengeance or barter for the lives of their loved ones. It hits him that these myths persist for a reason: they resonate in the human heart as much as entertain and inspire. They're real.

Once cleared, the two of them are ordered back to the house for a preliminary debriefing. Later on, there'll be a full inquiry and mandatory counselling sessions, but for once they're not worried in the least. A cop couldn't hope for a cleaner, more justified hit than Eddie's, and his father is deeply aware of how high the stakes were in this case for anyone who had any connection to the Prospect Point Six case. They just want to get the loose ends tied up and put them in the past.

Their biggest challenge right now is riding in the back of Carmody's and Hanover's cruiser with only an occasional, very casual arm squeeze now and then. Who knew their old codes for things best left unspoken would come in so handy?

Their hands end up next to each other on the seat anyway, pinkies overlapping, eyes unable to look away. If Carmody or Hanover notice anything, they don't say a word.

* * *

May 11th, 2018: Friday evening

It's Carmody who drives them both to Jamie's, later on, since there's no way either of them should be driving. He doesn't mention the single dropoff. Either he knows, always assumed, or doesn't want to know. Or maybe he can feel the sparks flying off both of them and just wants them out of his car as soon as possible. Eddie's grateful for his discretion. Not the least because the closer they get to Jamie's, the more the adrenaline reaction is settling into a desperate need for release. She's had to be so poised and controlled, not just after the shooting but this whole fucking week, and she's about to lose it.

So is Jamie.

And Jamie losing control is about the hottest thing she's ever seen.

She doesn't even hear the door. Jamie's got her braced up against it before it clicks shut, his eyes wild in the second before his mouth lands on hers, hard and demanding. She gasps down his throat and he echoes her, hoisting her up against him with a hand under her ass. Fuck her if he isn't hard already, nerves sparking, muscles jumping. She damn near climbs up his body, trying to find some way of rubbing against him, and he growls, staggering with her to the couch.

He drops heavily onto it, and she falls into his lap, straddling him and grinding down. He curses against her mouth and shoves her jacket over her shoulders and onto the floor. She gets a second of a breath while he pulls her shirt overhead, and then with something close to a snarl his teeth find the cord of her throat just as she bears down on him again.

She's got him under her hand, hard and hot. His hips lurch upwards by reflex. She works his belt buckle as fast as she can by feel. Then she can get him freed, and in a few seconds he's throbbing in her grip, velvet slipping over corded stone. He's tongue-fucking her mouth, ungentle, nasty and hot as hell, as she works him balls to tip and down again, slippery already as she circles her thumb around the slit.

" _Eddie_ … _fuck_ – " his hips jerk under her again.

" _Do it,_ " she hisses, "Lemme feel it."

He makes a strangled sound and fucks her fist, fast and ragged. Her panting into his neck turns into groans of pleasure of her own, she's _so close_ to coming just riding this out. She slackens her grip, makes him slow down just a fraction, and he curses again, his hands bruising on her hips as her own body tries to keep up. Then her tongue finds the hollow of his ear and she pumps his cock like it's her own. He chokes back a moan and holds his breath and then he's convulsing, pulsing in her hand, spinning out and finally skidding to a stop and gasping for air.

"Oh f…holy _fuck_ , Eddie," he pants. She rests her forehead against his and tries to let him catch his breath, but she was right there herself and she can't get off like this. She shifts in his lap and sighs and kisses down his neck, and wonders if they can walk to the bed.

He seems to realize this because he makes a couple of efforts to stand up with her in his arms, which doesn't work at all with the state they're in. She shrugs and slides off him, and that's when they both realize he's not going soft at all.

"Oh," he says. "Well."

She's already working on her jeans as he gets rid of his own jacket, and shoves his jeans down further. She moves to kneel over him again but he turns her around and _ohh_ , she gets it. He eases her down onto him from behind, and just when he's as full and deep as he can get, she feels his hand sliding between her lips, tickling her clit out from its hood, and _holy shit_ , it's like being in an electric current. She's so far gone he hardly needs to move. She's so exposed and she's fucking soaked and the feel of him sliding inside her, his fingers working the sides of her clit, has her crying out loud, quaking with the sensations crashing down every nerve. His arm locked around her waist is the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth at all. And then he thrusts upward, _hard_ , once, twice, and pinches her nipple through her bra _just like that_ and she's gone. Keening, buckling over, shockwaves rippling through her over and over.

She slumps back against him, panting and spent.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, his head dropping against her shoulder.

A chuckle escapes her dry throat. She rides out a few more residual shivers and sucks in a breath. "Are you – "

"It'll go down on its own. I'm so done."

"Fuck, me too. In so many ways."

"Let's just…get to bed and crash. Deal with everything else later."

"I'm in."

Pulling themselves together slowly, they find their way to the bedroom, and finish stripping down before falling into bed. In the wake of the adrenaline rush – nature's hidden backup weapon in a crisis – comes nature's remedy: deep sleep.

"Holy fuck," she breathes, still a little dizzy. He's about to roll onto his side and spoon her up, but his phone buzzes in that moment, and he groans.

"Guess that could be important." He grabs his phone from the nightstand. Thumbing his way through the message, he sighs in relief.

"Dad, just checking up on me. Oh. He wants me to join him and Pop for one of their porterhouse-and-bourbon lunches out tomorrow."

"Ah. Sounds fancy." She waits for him to put the phone back, and settles against his chest.

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna."

"You're not?"

"Nah. It isn't a family summons or anything. They just want to see I'm okay. And have an excuse to get a porterhouse steak and a bourbon buzz in the afternoon. I'm telling him thanks but I'm resting. I'll see them all on Sunday. Dad and Pop will take one look at me and know something's up. I think they know anyway and want to grill me. Otherwise they'd be inviting you as well, after everything that went down today."

"Are you gonna get the Inquisition at dinner?"

"Pretty sure. It's ironic, though – I think nearly being shot will work to cover up anything else they might pick up on. They're gonna want to know we're okay. But yeah, I've got to talk to Dad on Sunday, straight-up."

"About us, and wanting to stay partners?" She props her chin on her hands, resting on his chest, and looks up at him.

"Both. I wish you could be there. It doesn't feel right, talking about you. And I'd be happy to bring you with me, but that would be the ultimate dive into the deep end. So it's probably best if I just catch Dad alone afterwards."

"Ugh." She pulls a face. "Let's just elope and be done with it."

"We could technically be married by Tuesday morning, you know," he points out, deadpan. She doesn't even flinch, but plays along.

"Could have been Monday, if we'd swung by the City Clerk's office for the paperwork on the way back to the one-two. They were still open then."

"Mm. Pity. But I don't think they'd let two cops straight from a shooting scene and potentially in shock take out a marriage license."

"I'm not sure they could legally refuse."

"There is that."

"But at least there's Tuesday, and one day in the grand scheme of things is hardly a big deal."

They've been carrying on the farce this far with perfectly composed faces, but he ends up cracking a grin, and then so does she, and they end up cackling.

"It's probably a good thing the City Clerk's office is closed over the weekend. Imagine the impulse weddings," he says.

"Yeah, we probably shouldn't…make any major decisions while we're in this state," Eddie replies, with a rueful eyebrow.

"I know. But God, can you imagine the looks on everyone's faces?" His expression turns more serious, thinking of the afternoon's events. "And when it comes down to it, is there really any reason to wait?"

"Not really," Eddie admits, "There's something to be said for taking it slow and enjoying the ride. But then again – we've been doing that. We almost _fell off_ the ride."

"And we know the value of every lost minute."

"That's just it."

"I mean, we might not have called it dating, exactly, but – "

"We've called it just about everything else. Partners. Best friends. Pals."

"Soulmates," he says, tousling her hair.

"And you gave me a hard time over that," she looks up and glares fondly at him.

"Hey, I wasn't disagreeing, I just thought you were overthinking something that's supposed to be, like, a natural phenomenon or something."

"And here we are."

"And here we are."

"Wait. Was that you proposing?" she asks, with a slight wrinkle in her brow. "You're supposed to clue me in."

"I told you, you'll know," he grins. She rolls her eyes at him. With marriage a foregone conclusion, she has no particular worries, but she might get impatient enough to ask him first. Which would be fine, but she has a growing hunch that he has a couple of ideas for something special.


	7. Chapter 7

May 12th, 2018: Saturday afternoon

They sleep for nearly twelve hours, and emerge dazed and famished. They spend the laziest of mornings, even ordering up sandwiches instead of venturing outside.

By three o'clock, they're feeling more or less human. They're working through a Saturday study session in the living room, with two weeks to go until the Sergeant's exam, when Eddie notices that Jamie's hiding a few extra notes he's making.

"What'cha doing there?"

"Hmm? Oh, just scratching down thoughts as we go," he says. "What's the next question?"

"True or false: A prisoner who requests a lawyer while under the influence of drugs or alcohol can have their request denied legally," she reads.

"Yup. True. If they aren't able to instruct or understand their own lawyer, and we let them use their one phone call while they're still drunk or high, we can get nailed for denying them their right to legal advice. Since they wouldn't be able to absorb it anyway. Plus, Legal Aid gets bent out of shape when drunk clients call them at three a.m. and rant about how the whole world is against them."

"Top of the class." She notices him doodling again on the page underneath the one he seems to be working on. "Jamie, what _is_ that?"

"Just, um. An idea I'm trying to pull into shape."

"I see that," she says patiently. If he really wanted to keep something from her, he'd hardly do it in front of her.

"You know the promises we talked about," he says. "The ones we've made to each other over the years, even if we didn't say them out loud."

She closes the book. "Yeah," she says softly.

"I had this idea of how we can say them out loud."

"Okay?"

"They sort of fall into place. The promises I told you I made you. The ones you made. The things that inspired us to make them. As vows."

"Vows."

"Wedding vows. If we wanted to write our own. I mean, we pretty much have already."

Of all the brilliant ideas her Jamie has had, this one outstrips them all. Over the afternoon and evening, through study breaks, phone check-ins with various concerned Reagans, dinner out and a slow, lazy lovemaking session, their vows to each other drift into place. The essence of their long partnership and their aspirations for the future are crystallized within a few phrases that she will remember until her dying day.

 _I will always have your back._

 _If you fall behind, I'll wait up._

 _I will earn your respect, and show you respect, every day that we have._

 _I'll be your scout, your night-watchman, your cavalry._

 _Your medic, your Chaplain, in our army of two._

 _No retreat, no surrender._

 _You can count on me._

 _And you can count on me._

It doesn't escape her that Jamie's worked a bit of Springsteen into his. He's listened to her singing along with The Boss for five years. And she knows his penchant for chess metaphors.

Ten days ago, nothing could have convinced her that she'd be testing out and refining her wedding vows with Jamie Reagan, hand in hand and wandering home from dinner.

* * *

May 13th, 2018: Sunday morning

Something pounces on her.

"Eddie."

"Mm."

"Wake up, I need to ask you something."

"Whatizzit?"

"E-e-eddie," he singsongs.

She rolls onto her back and opens her eyes mostly all the way, before rubbing them and blinking at him. He's on his hands and knees on the bed in his running gear, having just come in from an early run that she opted to sleep through.

"Time is it?"

"About eight."

"Mm. You wanna ask me something before coffee?"

"I'm fully aware of the risks."

"You are way too awake. What is it?"

"Marry me?"

"What?"

He sits up, and reaches for her hand.

"Eddie. Edit. Miss Janko, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Because if Tuesday is as soon as I can marry you, then I want it to be Tuesday, and not Wednesday."

"Wh – "

She sits bolt upright in bed.

"See, I'm not in shock and I'm not on an adrenaline high and I've slept on it, and I even ran on it, and it _still_ sounds like the best crazy idea we've ever come up with."

" _Jamie!_ " she hurls herself into his arms and kisses him.

"Is that…"

" _Yes!_ Oh, my God, yes."

She peppers kisses over his sweet stubbly face and not caring in the least about morning breath and sex-knots in her hair or Jamie all sweaty from his run. And neither, apparently, does Jamie.

"What made you – "

"I was just out for a run, like always, and knowing you'd be here when I got back – it just hit me. And I didn't want to wait for just 'someday soon'," he tells her. "I mean, we've made our vows. I meant every word. I know you did, too. In what way aren't we married already? We've spent five years waiting around for things fall into place, between the job and personal stuff. But we can decide to put our relationship first and build everything else around that. The job's always going to take everything it can get out of us unless we push back."

"So let's claim our space and have something to push back with, is what you're saying."

"Something like that."

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

" _We just got engaged_. For real."

"We really did."

"But now…"

"Now comes the hard part."

* * *

"I'm beyond nervous," she admits. She's pretty wired, and she'd skip her morning coffee if she didn't know she'd end up with a headache later. She's sitting on the bed watching Jamie get ready for Sunday dinner, wondering what on earth she's supposed to wear to her first surprise appearance at one of these things. "I don't know why I should be. I think I'm more nervous for you. I mean, of course I care what they think of me, but they know exactly how to get to _you_. I've seen it."

"They love you."

She eyes him with dubious affection, and he shrugs, conceding the point.

"Okay. Erin loves you. Nicky wants to _be_ you. My dad respects the hell out of you and my brother thinks we should have gotten together years ago. The others always enjoy seeing you. They'll all come round. But yeah, there's going to be howling."

"I guess we really have to tell them everything today."

"I think we better. See, the thing with Reagans is that we sense blood in the water. They'll know something's up. I'm pretty sure they're just waiting for proof as it is. If all we tell them is we finally got together, they'll be happy, but they'll still know _something else is going on_. Erin and Danny won't let up pushing my buttons. Make Jamie Explode has been their favourite game since we were kids. And Dad and Pop will ask me about my intentions, and they'll want to talk to us both, 'cause they're, you know, _them_ , and I don't want to lie to them and say we don't know yet. And they'll know if I'm lying, anyway."

"Well, yeah," she says, "That's exactly what I meant."

"And besides that, if there's a big decision to be made, my Dad's always got to step in. You know, he starts throwing around hypotheticals and on-the-other-hands and then he starts moralizing, and then he starts _temporizing_ on his moralizing, and dinner gets cold and it just gets – "

"Exhausting."

"Yeah. So I've learned that when there's something major to announce, the best way forward is to get out in front, take the wind out of everyone's sails, call it a _fait accompli_. That's the reason I'm not even going to phone ahead and say you're coming. They'd be all over _that_ like a pack of hyenas. I'm just gonna act like it's any other day, and like everyone else is nuts for overreacting."

"But it's not any other day," she protests. "I'm _marrying_ you and we're _telling_ people."

"I know that," he kisses her, cradling her face in his hands. "And you know that. And it'll drive them crazy they can't get at me for it. Trust me, by the time everyone's stuffed full and finished yelling, they'll be so happy for us they'll be calling every cousin from here to Wicklow."

"Okay, okay," she kisses him back. "We'll run with that. And I'm going to marry you on Tuesday, regardless. But Jamie, that part's still easier than trying to stay partners. Your dad is still my über-boss, and I'm more worried about _that_. He might be happy for us finally getting together, but he's been hinting for months we should split up so we don't have to…split up. Coming at him with a non-existent policy is like sending your one and only rocket to divert an asteroid. He could just impose a new policy. Or reassign one of us regardless."

"I gotta tell him you called him an asteroid."

"Ugh! Jamie!"

He kisses her again, but his smile leaves his eyes as he turns pensive. "I have an idea what rocket we could use. But only if you agree a hundred and ten percent, because it's…it's about as big as it gets."

"Well?"

"I think," he says, "See, the main issue the force has with partners being involved personally, is that that can mean so many different things. Just being together is no guarantee that you can work together well. I mean, look at Paul and Kelsey. That's the nightmare scenario about clouded judgement."

She mutters in agreement.

"And then there's all the problems with legal and professional conflicts – what about spousal immunity from testifying, if one partner knows the other stepped over the line? And who's to say that any suspect we ever collared wouldn't try to complain that married cops could collude and cook up evidence, and never have to testify about it?"

"This is not helping."

"Hear me out. Police partners don't make vows to each other on the job, but the real solid teams know exactly what they can count on each other to do. And that's what we did. We've been making promises to each other all along. _That's_ the bedrock of who we are together. That's what makes us different from couples that can't and shouldn't be partners on the job. If we can get Dad to understand that we're only ever going to make each other better people and be a better team – he might just take it."

"You want us to tell him about our vows."

He's looking at her very intently. "Yes. More than that. I want them to hear them."

 _Ohhh_.

"You want us to _recite_ our vows."

"I told you it was big."

"That's like…"

"Yeah."

She feels her breath taken away for a moment.

"You realize that actually counts in some places."

He nods.

"Jamie…you know I'd stand up and say those vows to you anytime, anyplace and mean them. But to use them to convince your Dad to let us stay partners?"

"It's both things," he says, "I mean every word as they apply to my partner on the job, too. Besides – " he kisses her again, "us going from hands-off to engaged and getting married in forty eight hours is still going to give them heart palpitations, however happy they are. I think it might calm them down if they knew _why_. And me being totally candid about it for once will shut them up like nothing else."

"There is that." She nods slowly. "Okay. Yes. Let's do this. Just one question."

"Anything."

"What the heck do I wear to something like this?"

* * *

May 13th, 2018: Sunday afternoon

It's worth every iota of nervous tension and awkwardness to watch everyone's reaction.

They didn't mean to stage anything. She was just hanging up her jacket and quickly checking her hair in the hallway mirror, and she thought Jamie was letting the family know she'd come with him. But then he was back again, holding out his hand, and it wasn't until she'd reached out to take it that she realized the entrance she'd made.

Erin's and Nicky's eyebrows nearly shot off their foreheads. Henry and Danny beamed. Jack's jaw dropped, and Sean looked bored and hungry. Frank merely nodded as if he should have pieced this together some time ago.

"Hey, everyone," she faltered.

"Officer Janko," Frank greeted her. She was about to reply with a polite, "Commissioner," by reflex, but Jamie squeezed her hand with a reassuring pressure.

"Just Eddie, today, Dad," he told his father. And there was no doubt that Jamie's quiet request spoke more loudly than any of the usual Reagan blustering or protests. He was the one who never asked for much, and when he did, they listened.

"Actually," she chimed in, "not _just_ Eddie, today."

He gave her a look that she'd never have imagined him giving her in front of his family. The hovering flock of butterflies didn't dissipate, but found enough to hold onto that they stopped fluttering for a moment.

"Well, as of this morning – the future Mrs. Jamison Reagan," he announced, as breezily as if he was predicting a rain shower.

The reaction was loud and instantaneous.

"Wha – _get_ _out!_ " Erin yelped.

"Oh, my goodness! Congratulations!" Nicky melted, while Danny, still smirking, followed up with a heartfelt, "Way to go!"

Frank's eyebrows had twitched, too, but he sat nodding pensively for a moment before uttering a quiet, "I'll be damned."

In the years to come, Eddie knows that speaking her vows with Jamie in front of the family will be their real wedding. Whatever small ceremony they pull together will satisfy legal obligations. But in the rapt silence that follows their vows, everyone knows they've just witnessed a marriage.

Frank's response to their marriage is unequivocally warm as he ever gets. But it doesn't constitute a full answer as to whether or not he's going to let them continue to work together as partners. After dinner, as people seem to be moving towards the sitting room or the kitchen, she asks Jamie if they should try to talk to Frank some more about it.

"He told me he wants some time to think," Jamie says. "I think he knew there wasn't an actual policy. I don't think he expected me, of all people, to go against one of the Rules, though. Danny's right, we do have a Uniform Code of our own, but because we're such a legal institution – and we have unions – there's some things they can't actually enforce."

"And if he does let us go ahead with this," Eddie says slowly, "There's going to be more couples demanding to be allowed to work together."

"Yup. And if they don't have the kind of relationship that lets them function as partners, the only way to split them up will be through performance or discipline, or their supervisors would have to prove that the house needed their skills and experience in different partnerships."

"So we're back to square one?" Eddie asks. It feels like their one shot has fallen short of the mark.

"Not entirely. With what we know now, I don't think anyone's going to try to split us up _when_ we both get through the Sergeant's Exam, and we're just waiting for placements. And once that's in place, that's pretty much the only obstacle. We won't be working the beat together anyway, even if we're out with new Probies or leading our own teams."

"And that'll be something good, anyway. But not the same."

"Nothing ever is."

"True."

* * *

Eddie's sampled quite a few of Jamie's Sunday dinner leftovers over the years, but she's never participated in the haggling and dramatics that go along with separating them out.

"I'm a starving student!" Nicky leads off. "And I'm in training for my police physical! I _need_ that extra bit of roast! If I don't pass the physical first time, it'll be, like, a family disgra-a-ace!"

"I'm playing in a scouted football match this week!" Sean joins in. "If I don't impress them I could lose out on a scholarship-i-i-ip!" he finished, mimicking his cousin's wail.

"A strong contender," Danny says proudly.

"Yeah, but that benefits your whole household," Jamie points out. "You just sent out your best-positioned knight, is all. So you don't have to do anything."

"Did you just accuse me of castling?"

"Hey, did you hear that?" Jack says to his brother. "You just made Knight. Upgrade!"

"How does one actually win this thing?" Eddie asks Erin, off to one side. "Jamie's right. The kids have some serious advantage."

"Of course they do. They're irresistible. Believe me, when you and – " she blinks and glances over at Eddie. "Wait. Are you guys – is that why –"

"No, no. Seriously, no."

"Okay. Okay. Dad might've grilled Jamie, but nobody else was going to ask _you_ , and I didn't want you to feel awkward. Just in case."

"I think we really would have eloped, if that was the case. And sent a postcard afterwards from, I don't know, Australia."

Erin chuckles. "We have cousins there, too. There's no escape, I'm afraid. But my point is, you wouldn't have to worry. Precedent has already been created and entered into family case law."

It takes Eddie a moment, but when she sees Erin fondly gazing at her grown-up daughter, she gets it.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Believe me, any bombshells you and Jamie might've dropped are mild by comparison." She turns to Eddie and her smile becomes more serious. "Let me just say that as great as it is to have another woman in the family and to see Jamie so happy, _I'm glad it's you_."

Eddie returns the smile and chucks her gently on the arm. "That's you being mushy?"

"That's me being mushy."

"Well, I never had a big sister. And I'm glad that's _you_. And – ask me that question again in a year or so, will you?"

"Six months," Erin bets. "When you guys have a course of action, you don't mess around."

"I wanna make Sergeant first and get settled in, okay?"

"Okay. Easter."

Eddie's eyebrows go up thoughtfully. It's not impossible. It sounds kind of…good.

"I'm no Linda," Erin goes on, quietly, "She was so good at taking care of us. But if-and-when, I'll do my best for you, I promise."

Eddie swallows against a sudden lump, and nods. Overhearing his wife's name, Danny looks over, and comes to stand on Eddie's other side.

"Linda would've been beside herself today," he says. "I think I'm gonna tell her in person, next time."

Eddie is casting about for a proper response to this that a newly-minted sister-in-law might make, when Jamie comes up to them, two substantial Tupperware containers in his hands.

"Bit of everything," he grins, "and I scored the rest of the chocolate cake."

Her eyes light up. "Late night snacks!" she says.


	8. Chapter 8

The Promises and the Stories

 ** _I vow to you_**

He replays their meeting over and over for weeks. For months, if he's honest, and it still comes back to him sometimes, years later.

She was so little and fierce, like Hermia, so ready to throw down with the first person who dared to underestimate her. She wasn't as young as some new recruits, to his relief. She had life experience behind her eyes, and didn't much like being told what to do, though she clearly had ambitions, and understood that she'd have to toe the line and prove herself.

There were many phrases that Training Officers used to refer to the process of mentoring, most of which he would not repeat to her. _Coaching_ , he decided, he would call it, if pressed. He hadn't expected to be placed in that position so soon. That must have been what Tony wanted to speak to him about before he was called away, telling him only that he'd send out his new partner Janko to catch up with him outside.

And there she was, in a tiny, perfect uniform that must surely have come off a costume rack, trying desperately to play it cool.

"You're my first, Reagan. Be gentle," she purred. He realized then that she'd gotten used to navigating clusters of large alpha males through disarmament and guile, and getting her way before anyone knew what was happening. He'd met plenty of bright, pretty girls who'd taken that route as a defense, through their policing careers and the testosterone-fuelled rigors of Law.

Well, she was his first trainee, too. And he knew the material of their first lesson, before they could accomplish anything else.

Mutual trust.

He promised himself that she would never have any reason to feel she had to watch her back around him, or that she had to beguile him into taking her seriously. She would always know exactly what he was thinking and why, especially when he, as her TO, had to disagree with her. And then maybe they could function together as partners.

He felt a rush of genuine affection for her, this scrappy kid with everything to prove and everything to learn. It settled in under his ribs, a warming glow underneath the surface attraction he was bound to feel towards her. As much as she had to learn, so did he.

 _I don't know how we landed here, Edit Call-me-Eddie Janko, but I promise you, I will do my very best for you._

 ** _I will always have your back_**

Sometimes she thinks she understands the importance of loyalty between partners more than he does. He doesn't know what bone-deep scars of utter betrayal feel like. He doesn't know that the trust she shows in him is the highest mark of respect she knows how to give another human being.

There are times when Jamie's insistence on moral rectitude and aboveboard dealings comes dangerously close to sanctimony, however much he calls it acting in good faith. He'll lose sleep over trying to find a middle ground between showing loyalty to person in trouble, while still serving the greater good, and sometimes he forgets that that _she's not him_.

It's pretty cut and dried, for her. Kara Walsh is not to be trusted as a partner. Therefore, Kara Walsh should not be a cop. He doesn't understand the position that his open advocacy of Walsh has put her, Eddie, in.

Every junior cop needs a Rabbi, but he's acting like a priest, trying to make the boys examine their consciences about their public treatment of Walsh. It's not earning him any popularity points in the house. If he wants to pal around with a back-stabber, fine, whatever, but he shouldn't expect anyone else to do the same, and he _should_ expect some blowback.

So far she's escaped the blowback by association, but only (she admits) because she's known to have done her part in roughing up Walsh verbally and letting her know she's not welcome.

Since Walsh landed back in the one-two, after washing out of the two-seven again, some of the boys seem to be actively trying to bring Eddie into their after-shift beer and darts group. Pitying her, having to ride with the youngest Reagan, the class nerd, who can't possibly understand _the way things are_ , for the regular rank-and-file.

"Dump him," she is advised by several. "We've seen this before. Top brass kids think they're on a different level."

 _But,_ she thinks _, he is on a different level. And I want to be there, too._

But he won't let go of his fucking moral high ground, and she won't believe him when he says he'd always speak the truth and accept the consequences.

"If a suspect ever died on me 'cause of an illegal move on my part, and I went and lied about it, I'd hope you'd do the right thing," he say to her, dead serious.

"You'd want me to testify against you?"

"I'd want you to tell the truth as you saw it, and trust that the truth would come out. For my own sake as much as anyone else's."

"I wish I had your faith in the system. It failed Cutter. And it failed Walsh, or she'd have been vindicated, and she wouldn't be catching this much shit. Nobody wants a brutal cop in the ranks, but Cutter's a good guy who just went a step over the line and it ended badly. And even though he's innocent, he still got fired."

"Because he lied about it. And if Kara had lied for him, she'd be out, too. Or she should be."

"Oh, fuck it, there's no talking to you."

He just smiles. His faith in her makes her feel small and unworthy, and she's furious with him on a whole new level. Because he's right, damn him.

She's still steaming when Kara radios a call for help, but she hears herself parroting back Jamie's words to her temporary partner, who looks at her like she's crazy and tells her to go run back to Reagan if that's what she wants.

The look in Jamie's eyes is like a cooling balm on a prickly heat rash.

She hears herself rattling out an explanation. Her father. His actions. Her scars. She asks him to come with her to the prison where her father is serving his sentence. She might have come round and spoken up for Kara, but letting Jamie in so deep is the only way she can think of to return some of his faith in her as a partner, as a person.

 _I will always have your back, Reagan. One day I hope you know it for real._

 ** _If you fall behind, I'll wait up_**

She's scared. She admits it to him, and asks for his help. Could there be a less brutal cop than Eddie? But the citizen video that is sent to the One PP, which seems to paint her as out of control and perjuring herself, has her questioning everything. Her fitness to be a cop. Jamie's opinion of her. _Her own mind_ , knowing how her father spent years twisting his version of the truth to suit his own conscience.

He wants to help her, but the only way he can do that is to stay far enough under the radar that he avoids an IAB investigation himself, thereby losing any access to the evidence or the people who might prove her in the right. She's too new at the job to know how these things play out, and when he tells her to keep her head down and her mouth shut, she looks like he's told her he's given up on her.

The look on her face haunts him for days.

It's only when it's all over that he realizes how far over his head the whole scenario actually was. There was no way they could have known about it, at their level. But it took the Commissioner of Police and the Inspector General of Police to resolve the issue not through political machinations but through shared experience.

And that, he decides, is how he's going to treat every future setback and Eddie have to contend with. Because there will be plenty more, and she's still very new, and he's supposed to be what Tony was to him. Tony would never have let him flounder like that. It's another hard lesson in how much he has to learn to be the best TO he can be for her. _And whatever the situation_ , he promises her, _she will know she's not alone._

 ** _I will earn your respect, and pay respect, every day we have_**

It's their worst fight in the two and a half years they've been partnered, and this time she really thinks it might be their last.

She caught the guy and got the collar on her sheet. Another star towards the gold shield she desperately wants. But she may have lost her partner and her favourite person in the process.

She has only herself to blame for it. She knows a 10-13 means that a fellow officer is in trouble. She knows how she'd feel if she was hung out to dry, to fend for herself while her fellow officers ignored her calls. Dammit, she went through this with Kara, and she'd never leave Kara in danger.

But when a Detective gives a direct order to remain on a stakeout – and when that Detective has recognized your potential and is offering you chances to prove yourself, you do what they say.

She kicks herself for weeks afterward. She may be relatively new on the job compared to some, but she should know when she's being tested in a real-world scenario.

What Detective would expect a junior cop to ignore a 10-13? The whole point was that she was supposed to show that she understood that watching out for your shift took precedence over your own career. There were always those cops who were known to look out for number one all the time, who nobody really trusted, and being a keener, she'd come close to falling into that trap. She wanted to prove herself, but she had everything still to learn.

And Jamie was rightfully furious, not the least because he'd been her TO. He was supposed to have taught her, or at least shown her, these things. And he had. She'd let the special attention go to her head thought she knew best.

It came down to respect. For Jamie, for her fellow officers, and ultimately for her teachers, who, no matter what opportunities they dangled in front of her, were still dismayed to hear she'd chosen to make an arrest – and a unsafe one at that – over responding to an officer's call for help. It would have been so easy to radio in that she needed backup herself, and to let someone else make the arrest.

She was so used to having to fight for every grain of respect that she'd almost forgotten how to show it in the ways that mattered.

 _I'm going to work on that,_ she promised him, in her mind. _You should never have to wonder for a moment if I respect you and everything you've taught me._

 ** _I'll be your Scout, your night-watchman, your cavalry_**

The night she first kills a man, she offers to let him to crash in her bed. They've established that tonight is just about company. It shouldn't be a big deal.

(It's a big deal. It's been a year since they shared an electric tipsy kiss that they both still think about.)

"I'm fine on the couch."

"You don't have to. I trust you."

"I know. It's – I'm happy to stay, Eddie, but I know what it's like to wake up, and maybe you've had a nightmare, or a really bad flashback, and there's someone safe just _right_ _there_ , and it's too easy, it's only natural, it's just a human – so I mean, let's just not even put ourselves there. Okay? I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere."

She gives him a small but non-ironic smile for the first time all evening. He knows he's rambling, but at least he caught himself.

He doesn't sleep but a wink or two, as comfortable as she makes him, with a proper bed on her couch that unfolds right down onto the floor, sheets and everything. He keeps watch instead, sitting cross-legged against the cushions. His eyes rarely leave her door, as if to warn the night terrors not to bother.

"Did you sleep?" he asks her in the morning. He didn't hear her cry out, or sniffle, or anything. She looks a bit surprised.

"I did, actually," she says. "I feel like I can handle today."

"You don't have to go in."

"I know. Tony told me to take the day and go see the EAP shrink. Mandatory, you know. But I'll go mental just sitting here. Shit like this happens sometimes in this job. And we have cases to work on. I don't want us losing time on my account."

He looks more closely at her face, and see that she's speaking the truth. She has a ways to go, but she's stopped wrecking herself long enough to put the burden down and rest, and that's the hardest part. "How's this: we get breakfast, we go to roll call. I'll have a paperwork day and you do whatever you need to do, and tell me when you need to call it a day."

She smiles at him, tired, but with that ocean-blue calm returning to her eyes.

 _And if you need, I will keep the nightmares from your door again tonight,_ he tells her silently.

 ** _Your medic, your Chaplain, in our army of two_**

She's never been the type to fuss and flutter, and Jamie wouldn't want that anyway. But he does need to heal, inside and out, so he can get up and go on fighting the good fight. She can give him her solid support and faith that he _will_ get through and get up. That's what she's good at.

She thinks of the wonder in Jamie's voice when he tells her that the church was standing room only for Linda's Memorial Mass, and that at least two hundred cops, nurses, EMTs and doctors paid their respects at the graveside Service of Committal. Whatever uniform they wear, NYPD or hospital scrubs, they are all part of a borderless army, a global human force fighting against the violence of human against human, and the body against itself. Even when it feels like it's the two of them against the inexorable tide of their own department, with all its arcane, self-serving policies. Or, when they're the only ones who will ever know the value of the good work they've done.

Eddie can't minister to his faith, even when she can tell it is sorely tested. She's pretty far from any kind of Catholic. But just as a good Army Medic treats whoever turns up on her table, friend or enemy combatant, a good Chaplain offers a compassionate ear to any who need to speak, and that is something she can give him.

Getting Jamie Reagan to talk when he doesn't want to is the very definition of futile, however.

She isn't sure where the inspiration came from to turn up and join him for his early morning runs on his days off. She'd sometimes catch up with him for breakfast afterwards, before they went their ways to undertake whatever solitary stuff they got up to in the few hours they didn't spend together. But she wakes up early, and thinks simply, _I bet he could use some company. And I could use a real run._

She's waiting on his stoop when he emerges, ready to go with her ponytail up in her NYPD ball cap, and her favourite stretched-out tank, tights and runners. He blinks at her, and she gets up and gives him a businesslike eyebrow. He shrugs, deadpan, but she can tell he's touched.

They move off together in silence, sometimes at his pace, sometimes hers, sharing the view and the company and the morning air. After two miles, they circle back. As his building comes into view again, she wonders what she might say. She sends out a thought to wherever her morning inspiration came from to help her out again. She doesn't hear anything but their breathing. It's good enough.

They stretch their legs out briefly on the steps. She's about to smile and turn and leave, when he reaches out and squeezes her shoulder in his usual fashion. This time, though, his hand slides down to hers, and squeezes again. A warmth radiates from his fingers, and his eyes are soft and present, no longer distant. _Thank you_.

She squeezes back. _I'm here._

It's a start. It's enough. Maybe he knows something about silence that she can learn from. But he knows she'll be there when he's ready to speak.

 _Got you safe to the medic tent, anyway, partner,_ she thinks. _Now the hard work begins._

 ** _No retreat, no surrender_**

"This is so bad," she moans.

"Isn't it awful?" he agrees.

It's two o'clock in the morning. They don't have to be up anytime soon, and they're feeling rebellious anyway, like a pair of teenagers rehashing why Detention was so unfair. Only in this case, it's not Detention but a one-week suspension for calling Captain Hollis to his face exactly what he is, to wit: a jackass.

Worth it, they decide, but still unfair. Hollis was out of line both in his insinuations and his refusal to consult their experience with Billy, who knew and trusted them. They're considering a complaint. It probably won't go anywhere, but they know that Renzulli, at least, agrees with them on all counts.

After a Chinese dinner out that veered from comfy to interesting to downright breathless at times, he made the reckless decision to invite her back for a movie and a few beers. She accepted almost before he finished talking. It feels like old times, only better. The knowledge that her latest dating escapade has ended badly shouldn't give him a lift, but it does. He has the strongest sense that they're circling back to where they were a year ago.

So here they are, sitting back against his old leather couch, their legs stuck out in front (hers only reach as far as his shins, and her pearly pale blue toenails are distracting), with the dregs of a bowl of popcorn between them. They're watching the cheesiest boxing films in his collection. They heckled their way through _Vision Quest_ , and now they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with _No Retreat, No Surrender._ It's beyond bad. It's derivative tripe that verges on B-movie scenery-chewing, and it's exactly what they needed.

As the movie credits finally scroll up the screen, Jamie glances over. Eddie's grown quiet. She's picking out the last of the edible popcorn bits from the bowl and crunching them thoughtfully.

"It's really late," he says. "You're welcome to crash."

Her eyes flick up to his. "Between the sheets?" she grins. It's impossible to tell whether she's carrying on their fortune-cookie game or asking him for real. They've been yelling it back and forth all night. He decides to go with the ridiculous game. It's a far safer assumption for a beery middle-of-the-night moment.

"We're going to need a different battle-cry, or nobody's ever gonna believe that Hollis is wrong about us," he observes.

"True. Well, if we're going full-cheeseola, you can't beat 'No Retreat, No Surrender'."

 _I love you_ , he thinks, in a not-quite tipsy rush of sentiment. _Shit_.

"No retreat, no surrender," he agrees, holding out his bottle of ale. She clinks with him and they sit back in silence, drinking their beer, and not looking at each other.

She sleeps in his bed, after a brief argument, because he absolutely will not let a lady sleep on his old couch. And he's not going to join her there, knowing damn well what will happen if they wake up sober and well-rested in the same bed. Her yawns end the debate, and he threatens to carry her there himself.

 _Shit_ , he thinks again, at the amused eyebrow she gives him. But all she does is ask for a shirt to borrow. The thought of her curled up in his bed, wearing one of his old Harvard tees, keeps him awake until just before dawn breaks.

When they are suspended again, less than a month later, "No retreat, no surrender" stops being funny. It becomes their working philosophy and a promise to go down fighting together if fate decrees. Their careers and professional reputations are on the line, and any chance of being re-partnered after getting into so much trouble so frequently. It's just statistics; a string of bad luck from an intractable supervisor to a random bad call on a case that could have been a lifesaver, too, if they'd been right.

 _I can't think of anyone I'd rather have with me, backs to the wall,_ he thinks. _Even if it's our own side ranked against us._

 ** _You can count on me_**

 _I promise to share with you everything I know and to steer you way from bad calls and to know when you're in trouble and come find you and to get up in your face when you need and to praise you to the skies and to make you laugh and to love every part of you_

 ** _And you can count on me_**

 _I promise to pull the very best out of you every day and to keep you on your toes and to learn to trust you and to keep you in check when you need and to make you laugh and to love every part of you_


End file.
